Wednesday 7 September 2011

From 'The National', September 7, 2011

HCT puts lecturers' salary rises on hold

Melanie Swan -
Sep 7, 2011

The UAE's biggest federal university has scrapped this year's annual staff pay rise after deep cuts to its budget. The Higher Colleges of Technology (HCT) has been in the red since 2009. The colleges are this year reportedly working with a Dh900 million budget but are likely to spend at least Dh1.1 billion.

Last year the institution, with 17 campuses in the UAE, scrapped its annual merit pay rises of 2 per cent. Now its lecturers have lost the 4 per cent cost of living pay rise due last month. Lecturers at HCT earn an average monthly salary of about Dh20,000.

"We've not even been notified about this and we're just expected to accept it," said one staff member in Abu Dhabi, on condition of anonymity. "They have the attitude that if we don't like it we should leave. We are treated as unskilled, disposable labour and people have had enough. In the time I have been with Higher Colleges of Technology, we have seen a steady decline in the pay, bonuses and working conditions at HCT."

Dr Tayeb Kamali, the vice chancellor of HCT, said the increases had been cancelled but claimed the packages still exceeded those at similar institutions in the UAE and the region.

Dr Kamali said this year's priority was equipment and resources for the colleges. "It's just a priority of expenditure this year," he said. "It's nothing to do with us not having the budget."

When finalising pay increases, HCT studies the cost of living and predicts its available funds. After receiving Dh333m less than its calculated budget needs - a shortfall of more than a quarter - for this academic year, HCT turned away more than 2,500 applicants.

While this was partly due to the colleges raising entry standards, sources claimed the lack of funds made it impossible to accept all applicants, as it has done previously. HCT has places for 5,533 students across its campuses this year, more than 30 per cent fewer than last year's 8,024. The other two federal universities offered more places.

"Things have been getting tougher and tougher over recent years in terms of budget," said one staff member, who has taught at HCT for eight years and asked to remain anonymous. "We've been given more students per class, especially for those teachers in Fujairah who have absorbed large numbers of foundation [remedial learning to bring students up to entry level] students from UAE University, yet with no additional pay to compensate for much longer hours."

Another, who has taught there for 12 years, said: "There is a feeling that the management don't actually care what we think. We are never informed or consulted on major changes and yet they expect us to keep quiet and simply be grateful for having a job. It's not the way to treat people who have been loyal to the institution for many years and contributed something valuable to the society."

Dr Kamali said he hoped staff would understand the priority change this year. "It's only one year," he said. "Only two or three years ago we gave 15 per cent to account for the increased cost in living so we do treat our staff well with very good packages."

HCT, which specialises in vocational courses and training, has struggled for cash since 2005 and began overdraft borrowing in 2009.

mswan@thenational.ae

50 comments:

Khalife Exile said...

OMG!! So King Tubby claims it's "just a priority of expenditure this year".

In other words, we know we can shit on the teachers when we want to award the Directors large pay rises!!

Anonymous said...

Melanie - thank you so much. This isn't the standard nonsense in the UAE. HCT is run by a small group of corrupt individuals. I know it is hard to believe they steal but they do and they have created a number of 'shells' in order to do so - CERT, HCT Foundation, Contracts with kickbacks from outside vendors. It is scary. HCT's reputation is being destroyed and Sheikh Nahayan should be ashamed.

You give me hope that the country will change and the corruption will end. If it doesn't I feel bad for those who are disenfranchising others, there time will come.

Sounds like you got Kamali on the defensive. Keep it up. The money they get is for the students, not for corrupt arabs and indians.

Anonymous said...

There are a couple of interesting points that the article doesn't mention, but which need to be outlined here.

Firstly, the statement that "HCT ... has struggled for cash since 2005" needs to be added to. When did TK become HCT's VC? Why, 2005!

And if TK has had 'priority changes', does that mean the entirely wasteful 'Festival of Thinkers' and 'Education without Borders' shindigs will be dropped, and the focus returned to ... providing education?

We're awaiting your answers, TK!

Anonymous said...

TK's priorities are technology and image.

Teachers and substance mean nothing to him.

He will not waste money on acquiring the best teachers (and managers), but will squander millions on (1) BBC advertising, (2) festivals of gravy-train thinkers and (3) education without borders which excludes most of HCT students who are made to stay at home that week while the international stares shine light upon HCT's institutional mediocrity.

The sad truth is that we have Education without Thinkers and Festivals of Boredom.

Anonymous said...

HCT is in a downward spiral - word is they're moving towards being a university/bachelor's degree institution. Why? HCT has always filled a much needed niche in the UAE job market - competent entry level workers who (if they so chose) could move up in the employment market. Isn't that the intitial conception of HCT? Now they have increased their "competition" exponentially - with students who didn't qualify to attend the competition in the first place.
Sad really. But TaK and the super directors can still spout off to those at Stanford and MIT willing to accept $000s of dollars in return for a wink and a smile.

Anonymous said...

the directors should be made to take rollbacks...didn't they just get a payrise last year? it was in the national and dr.evil of sharjah was featured...

Anonymous said...

Miss Swan

Have you contacted Tubby the Kamel and asked him if directors, chair or other administrators also got no pay raise this year? I think it is a valid question that should be asked.

Anonymous said...

Based on information that came from a member of the HCT Budget Committee, HCT is facing a 500 million USD shortfall. Simon said the Budget Committee keeps pretending money will come and that faculty must keep teaching an ever larger load of students until the funds arrive. I am glad to be back home in the UK

hybrasil said...

None of this is any surprise to those of us who saw it coming... MANY YEARS AGO. UGRU was just the same; those who where doing well out of the current mess, would tell the rest of us to shut up, sit down; stop rockin the boat, etc. Seems to have caught up with everyone now; a system that contains the seeds of its own destruction will always come a cropper in the end. But some will always do better out of it than others... and it isn't the best who come off best.

Anonymous said...

To read this blog you'd think HCT was the worst possible place in the world to teach and that because of the abusive admin there are no decent teachers left. There are now - what - sixteen campuses? With 50 faculty or more at each? How many are leaving or planning to leave HCT, for whatever reason? The anonymous teacher quoted in the article would like to be consulted about management decisions. Good luck to him finding any such college. He or she notes that budget constraints have become more common recently. Perhaps he can tell us somewhere in the world where this is not the case. He notes a steady decline in pay. Perhaps he can cite instances of pay cuts. He claims faculty have had enough, but are large numbers likely to be giving up their jobs so they can go home and be unemployed? Not likely.

Anonymous said...

It's sad, when someone like Anon above can only point out that a bad world economy may lead to unemployment is the only reason that people won't leave the HCT on their own volition. Sad.

Fancy holding an economic gun to people's heads, do you?

People at HCT who are reading this drivel...hear this...the truest words ever spoken to me after being thrown out on my ear last year was "There's life after HCT!"

Absolutely correct! I took the classroom technology skills that had honed at the HCT and was re-employed well before my EOS ran out.

HCT cuts it's own throat and doesn't even realize the talent that it is letting go!

Thanks Tubby! Best decision you ever made by making me look elsewhere, realizing that I had much more to offer than I ever did working for your drones at ADWC, and giving all that spending cabbage! Yer a GEUIUS!

Anonymous said...

Let's see if I've got this correct. You hated your job at HCT, but didn't have the courage to leave. You also had problems with management, which led them to terminating your contract, which you now view as a turning point in your life because you could find a job elsewhere that you like. You are right to thank HCT for firing you. Sometimes its hard to make those decisions ourselves. But, would you say there are jobs out there with equal benefits for the 800+ faculty at HCT? If so, perhaps you could introduce us to one hundred. Would you also say that every person working at HCT is unhappy? Is it not possible that many people don't leave because they like their colleagues and their students and they feel well remunerated?

Anonymous said...

To Anyon sept 9th.

You didn't read the article well. You might want to go back and reread the article in the national.

The issue isn't that staff were not involved in a management decision. The issue is that staff were not notified about a management decision and still have NOT been notified about it officially. The annual pay increase (not merit based pay) is guaranteed in HCT policies and procedures. It is supposed to go into affect in AUGUST. Well august came and went with no notification (of anything about it), September has come... and look, no notification again.

In fact there would be no notification unless Miss Swan wrote the article about this issue. And she wouldn't have written the article w/out this blog pointing out the poor management skills of HCT. When you make decisions which affect your faculty, lecturers and staff you NOTIFY them. That is simple. That is easy. And that shows your faculty, lecturers and staff that you have some respect for them.

As for the loss in pay... well if you hire new people with the same qualifications for 20K AED a month, when the previous year you hired the SAME qualifications for 16K AED and the year before that you hired the same people for 14K AED, you are in fact losing money (if you were hired 3 to 5 years ago). And guess what? Most of the HR directors told those people, just wait it out, do your job and you will get up to the 20K mark with the ANNUAL INCREMENT. Oops... So the pay raise that is supposed to catch you up to the new folks has just been taken away from you... There goes your pay... that would be a pay loss.

Include the fact that the annual incremental raise is in our contracts, and in HCT's policies and procedures this decision to cancel them is a loss of pay.

But with your reading for comprehension skills, I'm not surprised you don't understand that. Just one question, did you happen to attend and graduate from HCT? It would explain so much.

Anonymous said...

"The issue isn't that staff were not involved in a management decision."

That comment was in reply to the comment from the unnamed faculty member quoted in the article, who said,

"We are never informed or _consulted_ on major changes..."

So maybe its you that needs to read a little more carefully.

As for pay cuts, from what I have read no one's pay has been reduced. Perhaps you have a few examples. Furthermore, and please quote from the contract if it is otherwise, increases are mentioned in the contract as discretionary. See Dave's for discussion on this.

Anonymous said...

Hmm, somebody seems to be keen to trot out the "you're lucky to have jobs" line. I wonder who that could be, eh, dear Mr Drummond?!

Anonymous said...

As per the "see daves" for this discussion... you might want to READ FOR COMPREHENSION again... because as I stated, in the POLICIES AND PROCEDURES of HCT it says that faculty, lecturers and staff WILL get a yearly pay increase.

oopsie. Reading for comprehension fail...

Anonymous said...

Rather than accuse others, you ought to take a look yourself at the documents in question. They are freely available on the web. You'll find, as the previous poster noted, that the increment is discretionary - at least according to the language in the policy posted online. Perhaps you know of something that supersedes this document. If so, put it up here for us to see. Otherwise, have respect for others and practice humility. You are as likely to be mistaken as any other.

================

Economic Adjustment to Salaries

Based on the annual analysis of the UAE cost of living indicators and budget approval, adjustment to salaries _may be_ applied annually. Employees with a current performance evaluation and "meets or exceeds performance" rating will qualify for the economic adjustment to salary.

Contract Renewal Adjustment

On renewal of contract, the base salary _may be_ adjusted subject to approval of the Human Resources Committee and the budget.

Market Adjustment (Differentiated Pay)

To align the pay practices with changing market conditions and skill scarcity, an increase _may be_ considered. The general increase may not apply to all grades in the HCT and will be done on a differentiated basis.

Employees who have reached the maximum of the salary scale for the grade shall not be eligible for any of the salary adjustments (detailed above) unless the salary scale is revised and approved by the Chancellor.

Anonymous said...

Keep looking... it is in those exact policies and procedures that we can't link to unless you are an HCT member... It says the annual salary increase (not the market adjustment, not the differentiated pay, not economic adjustment to salaries) and the key word in those policies and procedures is WILL, not MAY.

So keep on looking and you will find it.

Anonymous said...

Let's see if I've got this correct. You hated your job at HCT, but didn't have the courage to leave.

NO, JO, I DIDN'T EXCEPT WITH YOU AND THAT WOG JOHNSON!

You also had problems with management, which led them to terminating your contract, which you now view as a turning point in your life because you could find a job elsewhere that you like.

NO, JO, LIKE I TOLD YOU AT MY CUBICLE, I DID POST ABOUT JEANETTE, BUT IN A SUPPORTIVE ROLE. YOU DON'T "TURN" AT 50!

You are right to thank HCT for firing you. Sometimes its hard to make those decisions ourselves.

NO, I THANKED THAT SHIT, KAMALI, JO, ARE YOUR READING COMPREHENSION LEVELS APPROACHING THOSE OF YOUR WARDS?

But, would you say there are jobs out there with equal benefits for the 800+ faculty at HCT? If so, perhaps you could introduce us to one hundred.

ACTUALLY, SELF-DIGNITY IS GREATLY UNDERATED, ESPECIALLY LIKE THE LIKES OF YOU WHO HAS NEVER SMELT THE ZEST OF PRIDE.

Would you also say that every person working at HCT is unhappy?

NO, JUST THE THINKING ONES...

Is it not possible that many people don't leave because they like their colleagues and their students and they feel well remunerated?

BEING WELL-PAID FOR COW-TOWING TO THE PRINCESSES DOES NOT FORM A PROFESSIONAL.

YES, I SAID THAT I WOULD LEAVE AFTER MY CONTRACT ENDED IN YOUR PRESENCE AND IT GOT ME MY ENTIRE PACKAGE. HAD I DID SOMETHING...ANYTHING WRONG, THEN EVERYONE KNOWS THAT HCT WOULD'VE CLAWWED EVERYTHING BACK. THE FACT THAT I GOT EVERYTHING COMING TO ME TELLS LOADS OF MY PROFESSIONALISM AND THE LACK OF CAUSE THAT HCT HAD!

Anonymous said...

"Keep looking... it is in those exact policies and procedures that we can't link to unless you are an HCT member... "

How do you know such a document exists? If you have proof, share it.

Anonymous said...

"THE FACT THAT I GOT EVERYTHING COMING TO ME TELLS LOADS OF MY PROFESSIONALISM..."

Yes, quite the professional, posting your anger anonymously on a hate blog. It appears HCT maintains a commanding presence in your mind. May you learn to let go.

Suede Oasis said...

OK kids, that's enough of this playground bickering. Pack it in or I'll report you both to TK!

Anonymous said...

I see Rudi is writing here when he is not writing fake articles on how HR is done in the UAE for the CHE. I doubt Drummond is writing. He is too busy figuring out how to pay for a wife who collects diamonds and gold and wants a condo in Bangkok. Old Mark just wants to feed his horses and mules. Of course, he did do better than most of us. He has a personal services contract. In other words, he consults with the HCT but does not work for the HCT. This allows him to deduct most of his income as expenses which means he pays $OO tax dollars back in the US. Good deal for Mark especially if he has been able to get others to pick up the costs of his 4 ex-wives. Rudi, may I have a contract like Mark's?

Anonymous said...

I really think it's time to stop with the hurtful personal comments - and no, this isn't Mark Drummond! This is meant to be a forum to air views on HCT policies and education, not to personally attack people you don't even know. There are always (worse paying, worse condition) jobs back in the US/UK or wherever you all come from to go back to if you don't like it here. Enough now. Have some respect and show some dignity, anonymous or otherwise.

Khalifa Exile said...

"Have some respect and show some dignity"

Ha! When the HCT management start showing respect for its most importtant human resource, AND treat us with the dignity we deserve, it will be returned.

Simples!

BTW, as somebody who came from the state sector in the UK to work for HCT, I have to say that pay and conditions at HCT do NOT exceed those in the UK now.

Do your homework, goon, and you might just realise why you're losing so many teachers (although, as the size of HCT is shrinking due to budget mismanagement and students voting with their feet, perhaps it's a ploy to get rid of some of them!).

Anonymous said...

I found this enlightening little piece about HCT on wikipedia...

Controversies and Mismanagement

In December 2005, soon after Dr. Kamali was appointed as Vice Chancellor of HCT, a spate of resignations were reported, raising concern among employees over increasing job uncertainty which could adversely affect the reputation and standard of the institutions.

Some 25 officials, ranking from directors, supervisors and heads of departments primarily from the directorates of Central Services and Academics at HCT, resigned for various reasons, prominent being the alleged change in policy after Dr. Kamali took charge in June.[10]

Moreover, the HCT system has recently been criticized after the College management reneged on a previously agreed 'merit pay' system, and also ordered cuts in pay increments throughout the organization.[11]

In September 2010, further degrees of indifference from HCT senior managers towards their staff were revealed. Teachers who were forced to transfer to HCT upon the dissolution of the UAEU's Foundation Programme were reportedly told that they were 'lucky to have jobs' when they complained about vastly deteriorating working conditions - 50% extra teaching hours and no pay increase to compensate. Moreover, the HCT Provost, Dr Mark Drummond, claimed that such complaints 'were to be expected', which hardly served to inspire confidence in the organisation. As a result of HCT's dismissal of the grievances of its staff, several teachers resigned immediately and many other have threatened to do so soon.[12]

More recently (September 2011) the HCT management reneged on their pay agreements even further, denying all staff their contractually-agreed increments without even bothering to notify them. Staff have reacted to the college's actions angrily, claimimg that HCT treats its teachers as "unskilled, disposable labour". One claimed there had been "a steady decline in the pay, bonuses and working conditions at HCT" over the past few years.[13]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Higher_Colleges_of_Technology

Anonymous said...

I'm really shocked to discover that HCT's academic and teaching staff have gone behind the college's back and snitched to the press. Really upset too.

Only last year there was a directive - a DIRECTIVE, I tell you! - from TK himself, forbidding any staff members from talking to the press without a member of HCT's highly esteemed PR/Media Relations department present.

The reasoning behind this remarkably democratic move was to ensure that misunderstandings - MISUNDERSTANDINGS, I tell ya! - were not made, and that the college's image remain untarnished.

But how do you untarnish a shitehole led by a crook?

Kelly said...

Hey, the conference was a real gas! SO much Hot Air!!

I overheard a colleague on the way out after the Sheik's speech saying: 'Hey, why did they theme this year's conference 'Raising The Bar'? Wouldn't it have been more appropriate to call it 'Barring The Raise'?'

It nearly killed me!

Anonymous said...

how was the talk kelly,in English???that reminds me about tubby and rudi (shurely Rude he?ed) who go into the bar after the talk-you think ONE of them would've seen it-boom boom!

Anonymous said...

Dear Provost and little Rude:

More and more good teachers feel less and less inclined to work for a bankrupt organization which depends on borrowing: ""HCT, which specialises in vocational courses and training, has struggled for cash since 2005 and began overdraft borrowing in 2009.' Melanie is wrong of course in her belief that HCT specializes in vocational courses and useful training of Emiratis. That was in the good old days. Now HCT squanders hundreds of millions pretending that it's never heard of vocational courses and training, in its desperate attempts to set itself up as a university.

"Dr Kamali said he hoped staff would understand the priority change this year."
HCT teachers understand Kamali's and the Provost's and Ruuude's 'priority change' Don't invest in your people. They are not your greatest asset.
Which school of managment did he and the geriatiric provost and smoothie Rudie attend?

Oh, by the way, HCT turned away thousand of applicants at the beginning of the year. As Melanie says:
After receiving Dh333m less than its calculated budget needs - a shortfall of more than a quarter - for this academic year, HCT turned away more than 2,500 applicants.

Now, they have been accepted to start in Week 3 of the semester. Educational planning? Yeah, right. Does this increased number of new students lead to the restoration of the increment? No, the money will be siphoned off to fund festivals of thinkers and RAK Hilton iftars and 90,000 dirham salaries for senile directors who can hardly find their way to the college and when there can hardly remember what they came there to do and with who with.

Suede Oasis said...

I would just like to clarify a couple of mistaken points that an HCT management goon has made above (September 9, 2011 11:43 AM) in a typically pathetic attempt to justify the woeful mismanagement practised by TK and his cronies.

To read this blog you'd think HCT was the worst possible place in the world to teach and that because of the abusive admin there are no decent teachers left.

No, not the worst place in the world, nor in the Gulf. But HCT likes to portray itself as a shining jewel in Gulf education, especially to potential teachers, whereas the truth is somewhat removed from that. And that's what this blog is about, really - unravelling the truth.

There are now - what - sixteen campuses? With 50 faculty or more at each? How many are leaving or planning to leave HCT, for whatever reason?

Perhaps you could enlighten us, dear goon, with the official stats, as transparency is not a feature of HCT management. I would bet a handsome sum that many more have left over the past 5 or 6 six years, since TK came to power, than in the previous equivalent time period.

The anonymous teacher quoted in the article would like to be consulted about management decisions. Good luck to him finding any such college.

Not so tough at all. Any serious college in a proper country (which of course excludes HCT and the UAE) would never even think of imposing a pay-freeze and not telling its staff. But TK thinks he can shit on people with impunity - not a shrewd move!

He claims faculty have had enough, but are large numbers likely to be giving up their jobs so they can go home and be unemployed? Not likely.

Wrong again, dumbo. Why do you assume that they would (a) go home, and (b) be unemployed? There has been an enormous increase in demand for English language learning and for learning in English, especially from the emerging markets of the BRIC countries - Brazil, Russia, India and CHINA, where literally millions of young people want more English and to study degrees in the language.

The Gulf is no longer the shining jewel that it was, and it will have increasing difficulties in recruiting staff when equivalent posts are available in countries that do not shit on their human resources with such apparent relish. And these countries include the teachers' home countries too!

Anonymous said...

Well said when you said Gulf jobs and HCT jobs were no longer the shining jewel. The institutions and the jobs they offer are deeply tarnished.
I resigned from HCT after falling into despair regarding its disrespect of good teaching. There was no shortage of job offers. The only handicap I had to overcome with my employers was why I had wasted so much of my career working for employers who had fallen into such disrepute among the professional teaching community.HCT, as reported online.

I struggled through the interview and convinced them that despite my several wasted years I was still a good reliable teacher and had not succumbed to the madness of HCT's annaual changes of policy, curriculum, testing, .....
Where is S. Nahayan? Can he not regain control of the Asylum? Can S Nahayan not control from the lunatics the VC and HR crazies?

And who the hell is Sentil?
Show us his credentials.

Lord Lympe-Dycke of Nether Stonking said...

BEHOLD the almighty Doctor Meloonie, the winged CORPULENT ONE descending from the VAPITUDES of the ineluctable to SHED LIGHT upon the TRANSLUCENT MEMBRANE of the petty wrangling with which YOU HCT IDIOTS fill the MANGLED HULK of your PATHETIC EXISTENCE!

BEHOLD the bogus 'professor'!

BEHOLD the gossip-bag Meloonie, and cease your 'professional' PREENING, your expat POSTURING, and your envious PLOTTING, all vile products of the CANT- and codswallop-inspired INDOLENCE and INDIFFERENCE that keeps you all IN THRALL to your ORIENTAL PAYMASTERS!

Indeed, THERE ARE NONE SO entrammeled that the architrave shall not ENLIGHTEN them. The 'Doctor' shall ENLIGHTEN us all!!

Anonymous said...

WTF??

Anonymous said...

Dear Miss Swan.

You might want to ask HCT brass about the amount of money they spend on things like the "festival of thinkers" or the "education without boarders." With a freeze in staff pay, how can HCT spend lavishly on these events?

Just something to follow up on .

Thank you.

Anonymous said...

Read below the minutes of a RAK colleges meeting in which media probing is addressed.

One colleague said "It’s good the media is beginning to pay attention to the financial waste of the higher colleges and to ask questions. Could this be the beginning of public scrutiny and accountability in higher educational spending in the UAE?"

The next time Sheikh Nayyan complains to the federal government and the media about the underfunding of HCT, perhaps he could explain why the Director, Associate Director and Facilities Supervisor at RAK COLLEGES showed so little cultural and personal sensitivity. They agreed to pay for almost 200 RAK staff to have an Iftar the staff did not want to have in a hotel venue flowing with alcohol and populated with scantily clad tourists returning from their sunny day by the beach and the pool.

Look at Moulton’s jargon and management-speak below. It speaks volumes, ... or speaks nothing, depending on your opinion. Recurring vs non recurring expenses. Gimme a break bob boy!

Item 2.1. Update from Dr Moulton

Iftar Meal
Dr. Moulton reported that he had been contacted by the media regarding the cost of the RAK Colleges Iftar meal at the Hilton. He stated that the funding for the event came from non recurring RAK funds that cannot be used for recurring costs such as salary increases.

(Minutes, meeting, held 8 September 2011).
This was designed to be a meeting showing Moulton’s aim to bring faculty of both men’s and women’s colleges together. He failed in his aims. There was no faculty from the men’s college. They had had enough of his silly posturing, his sham democracy. There were still 8 believers in the women’s college, keeping the faith, hoping for something better from bob.

The MOST STUPID part of Bob's inane response to the media is that HE is on a special BUDGET committee for all of HCT, based on his so-called American experience. His task is to rationalize and prioritize budgets and to make sure that the allocated monies are well spent. There is nothing rational about paying for 200 staff to stuff their faces at the Hilton. It's the wrong priority in these financially challenging times, Bob. It shows a serious error of judgment among budget committees. It may all have to do with the very expensive exercise of managerial ego.


Wake up HCT . Prioritize teaching.Priorize student needs. DO NOT prioritize a meaningless public event, at which no students are in attendance, which provides an occasion for a Pompous old director to strut around making asinine speeches while playing games of inflated self-importance.
He doesn't even know who any of us are. He suffers from chronic memory shortage.

Send a director to RAK soon, before it's too late. At the moment, RAK is directionless. It has nobody. It has a body sitting in a chair, growing through the motions of college life.

Anonymous said...

No doubt after reading this message, he will issue a dictatorial edict commanding the presence of the men’s college at future meetings – in the interests of democratic representation.

Anonymous said...

One of the huge problems of HCT has been its inability to retain not only good teachers but also good directors. There is a fast turnover at the top. There’s a Fujairah nonentity kicked out of Abu Dhabi. Al Ain is a mess with the Smith mafia in charge. The RAK guy’s been there just a coupla years and still doesn’t know which way is up in the UAE. He has made hct a joke in the emirate. Howard’s a relic. Fareed’s got delusions of being an intellectual but we’re having a hard time tracking down his publications on management, education, ethics, philosophy and politics and pontificating. Does anybody have a Fareed bibliography – and better still, Howard Reed’s 10 best articles on leadership in education? The smirky guy in Abu Dhabi Men's College has an obsessive interest in what teachers wear,not what teachers teach. Most of his communications are about belts and braces, not standards and strategies.

What has the UAE invested so much money in so little managerial talent? thank God the teachers go on daily doing a great job despite the best efforts of HCT directors, ass directors and provosts and ass provosts to undermine their best efforts.

Anonymous said...

T the K is wrong when he says that HCT is competitive - come to Qatar and work for any of the 6 "real" American universities or even CNA- faculty are paid according to the home campus's scales - not the made up ones here in the gulf.

I used to work for HCT and it is a crying shame what TK and his minions are doing to destroy their niche market - providing entry level employees who could grow into senior positions - instead of having all of them believe they can step into senior managerial roles - what a waste of both the nation's money and more importantly the nation's potential talent (once they had the experience). His UAE passport should be revoked.

Anonymous said...

I am sure TK would like to talk with any of us about these matters. Here is his private cell phone.
TK- 050 612 6851

Anonymous said...

Breaking RAK news. SMS top secret from Abu Dhabi that they’re booting the RAK Associate director out of the RAK colleges.

Ali’s an Emirati kid who used to be a student at HCT and then grew too big for his own britches or wazir and he kinda fancied takeing over the place.

The CLAW tried to show this local guy how to run a college but this proud Mansoori had no time for the upppity snooty airhostess with her patronizing attitude to the natives, and many’s the fight we saw in the women’s college as their tempers clashed and they went storming off in different directions from unresolved meetings. Wonderful entertainment for the plebs. Then the new Mexican Moulton adopted the kid and tried to teach him the skills! Moulton. Claw. Teachers of management. Go figure, guys!

Now after a prolonged storm of criticism gathering from all sides, Abu Dhabi responds by pulling dumb Ali out. Next week there will be diplomatic communications. Abu Dhabi is also keeping an eye on Bob the Destroyer. Ali, who was being groomed for the RAK directorship until shit hits many fans, is just one more of Bob’s failure. It would have been a fairytale ending from the pen of TK: local student makes good.

Of course, HCT could change over the weekend, and keep Ali, retire Bob and make Tayeb a senior vice chancellor. Que sera sera.

Anonymous said...

Awesome if its true. Mean's somebody is beginning to pay attention to RAK out there in the wildnerness at last. Moulton's little empire, Moulton thinks running it according to his mad-king whims.

The toadies close to him, wining him, dining him, flattering him, whose life mission is to suck up to him no matter how mad he gets in his madness should begin to feel a twinge now. They have indulged him long enough. RAK's worst director, everybody says. RAK and ruin, with Moulton responsible for the ruin.

Anonymous said...

Why is this Moulton chap so bad?

Anonymous said...

Look at what Rudi is writing at the CHE
http://chronicle.com/article/For-Academic-Expatriates/129151/

EnglishTeacher365 said...

Hmm, interesting piece, Rudey.

The title, "For Academic Expatriates, Families Can Be a Big Risk Factor", is a little misleading, as it fails to make any mention of the fact that one of the risks involved comes from the employer, who refuses to pay schooling allowances that are realistic and have kept pace with inflation.

Could that negligent employer possibly be ... HCT? Why, yes it is!!

Anonymous said...

We need to post on the CHE and call him out for the fraud he is. Posting here is not enoughh

Rakman said...

Good idea. Let's sign up and add a few appropriate comments. Should do his 'professional profile' a whole world of good!

Anonymous said...

I see that the high-and-mighty Rudolph Young is looking for a new job here:

http://people.bayt.com/rudolph-young/

Which probably explains his recent flurry of publishing activity.

He states that he is "interested in a position as HR Director, ideally with a Multinational organisation."

Keen to desert the sinking ship, eh, Rudie? Just like all of the other senior management HCT rats, I guess!

Anonymous said...

Those that publish the most always have the least to say.

Anonymous said...

“HCT, which specialises in vocational courses and training, has struggled for cash since 2005 and began overdraft borrowing in 2009.” Melanie Swan, The National.

A correspondent to Dave’s ESL CAFE asked recently why Melanie Swan and a photographer were sighted visiting RAK HCT.

The chances were, given the nosedive in the quality of management since Moulton took over in RAK, this investigative journalist had some hard questions to ask about budget waste in education in an instution struggling financially. She might, for example, have asked: (and Dr Bog # might have answered)

Why are you, despite HCT’s huge struggle for cash, offering 22,000 dirhams in prize money for student designs for a piece of jewellery? Can HCT really afford this and still beg and borrow? What not offer 3,000, 2,000 and 1,000. Why are you desperately flashing cash?
#A non-recurrent expense, so that’s OK.

Why did you spend 10,000 dirhams on metallic name tags for teaching staff: showing their names in English and in Arabic? Do the staff wear them daily? Did you also get them made for new staff who joined this year? Or is it just the old guys who get to flash their costly badges?
#I got them cos they look so purty.

Why did you decide that spending money on almost 20,000 plastic bags with the HCT Colleges logo was a good idea?
#Cos Camels need to eat too. We need to feed them there camels.
Let them fill their big ugly bellies with our HCT plastic waste blowing through the RAK desert and all along the highways. 20,000 bags. Plastic. Plastic is the future of the UAE. Believe me. I'm a professor from the totally nonrated University of Mexico, new, or something like that.

Why have you squandered money on all the staff of both colleges force-feeding them to full course meals seven times in the last two years? And then shower them with gifts and prizes at said events?

#Cos lowpaid teachers with skint back holidays and no increment need the plastic gifts we shower upon them. Teachers can be very grateful you know.

Why do you invite your buddies to come from America to give awful professional development sessions? Your buddies have little or no understanding of the local contexts of teaching here. Jenny triple chinn for heaven’s sake?
# You get old you git on up to the ole gravy train and then he and she who slurps loudest wins. You invite your good ole buddies to slurp with you. It’s feedin’ time at the good ole mid east trough. Jenny has special needs.