Student Uncovers Uncomfortable Truths about HCT (part two)

Part Two of the gradual awakening of an HCT student features a bit more of the same, plus a bit of something new - HCT snooping on its own students! We all know that HCT Goon Squad Central is very adept at keeping itself , ahem, 'aware' of what its employees are doing, but now it appears that the management is spying on the students too!

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Hey Suede,

It's me again! I forgot to include an important part of my previous message. It's a big scandal that has to be on your site!

The managers of the IT department, the library employees and some of the database workers have the right to access your logs, files you've saved in college, your username and password that's connected to your history and possibly photos chat history and calls. As an information technology, I paid no attention to having to insert my username and password. Then it hit me, how did the teacher know that some students cheated in the exam if she was just sitting on her chair in front of her computer all day? Does that mean they accessed our information WITHOUT any consideration for the rights we might have?????????!!!!!!!!!!!!

Why did we have to use our username and password to connect instead of just joining the network or even only being given general usernames and passwords that aren't linked to our activity in and out of college?

Why did one of the lecturers take my friend's laptop out of the blue and keep it with him for a few hours?

If you put all of these questions into consideration, there's no way you can say that it is to protect the student's safety and monitor their usage, it's used to spy into and lurk around their personal lives. It was indeed very creepy to imagine that some of the workers would just sit by looking at our personal lives as we come and sign up everyday into their corrupt networks.

My friend tried setting up a manual proxy while connecting to the network. We set up our own virtual private network in addition to toolbars that auto- encrypts the http into https in urls. (S means secure browsing). For days and weeks, workers would try to find the anonymous source of our information (since we were using the vpn to connect to the network!) It only proved our point that the HTC is a group of pathetic managers that barely control their creepy old geezers and hags that lurk in people's personal information!!!!!!!

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Dear Suede, 

Here's additional information you might be interested in:

- the colleges of technology are facing severe decrease in the number of employees, which means that the class times for the teachers who stayed have increased from 15 hours of teaching to 30 hours per week (due to lecturers quitting their positions.) There is a lack in teachers that's estimated to around 200 lecturers around the country.

- the issue kept developing until the beginning of the first semester. Students are complaining from not being able to enroll into the majors they want to choose because there aren't enough lecturers to teach these students. 

- the directors of the HCT unanimously agreed that there is a severe shortage of faculty members in different fields. This is due to the bad decision-making skills by certain persons in the college adminstration , since some steps are taken without referring to other employees that are related to the issue that occurs, isolating them and not allowing them to participate in decision making. This caused many problems such as lack of lecturers.

- according to emirates news, around 199 Mil DHS have been used to buy equipment such as science and computer lab stuff, electronics, projection screens and so on, but the colleges still face a huge lack of both human and electronic resources!!! The termination of services for some staff without having their replacements made a delay in delivering some of the stuff and completion of procurement in various colleges in the country. 

- students at the HCT complain of several difficulties encountered during their studies such as being treated improperly by teaching staff, constantly being threatened with academic dismision for reasons that are not convincing. They're suffering from the school system and some of the students with financial problems are forced to buy a laptop and an ipad (for information technology and business students) and a laptop only for all other majors including English levels.

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OK, any comments on the above?

Student Uncovers HCT Truths (part one)

SuedeO is now TWICE as happy to present an insider's view of HCT - because it's in two parts! My thanks go out to the anonymous student (called Hamda - or is it Noura?) who has taken the daring step to present her  sincere opinion of HCT - one of the nation's most important institutions, apparently

Dear Suede,

I have read many posts in your online blog that further prove the truth about corruption in the Higher Colleges of Technology around the UAE. l am another local girl complaining from many aspects that are relevant to different areas such as management, breaching and invalidated contracts, the non-professional mannerisms of both local and expatriates, and many fields of corruption that weren't previously mentioned in this post.

It was hard to open a blocked site in my country and I feel awful for breaking the rules, but the truth must make its way to people.

First, this is the most important part of my paragraph. I am a local student and I am not writing this to lie. I am here to reveal the true, objective nature of this unethical place, and to help the government take a positive step onto improving the education in my country. Anyone who worked or studied in the Higher Colleges of Technology will not help but to agree with me, and if you're still defending manipulation and saying that I made things up, you're just delusional and need a whack on the head to wake up.

As a local, I will not step aside and watch education in my country crumble down. Students deserve a better teaching environment and teachers deserve more rights in valid contracts.

Here are some few things that I have noticed that the ministry of high education needs to take care of as soon as possible:

1- The HCT does not have valid work contracts. One must think. How could it be that such a big organization that follows the ministry of education breaches contracts, how is it possible that the rights of the employees are not properly illustrated in papers, working/ office hours, their salaries, and they're always overworked and barely have time for their personal lives or families. Everyone must confirm that there will be recent changes in contracts and they may be expelled or dismissed without a reason! This can dangerously distress students because the lecturers would be going through stress that they may intentionally or unintentionally take out on them affecting the learning environment and their grades. It was very common for me when I was a student to see that certain employees had no office (or an office that keeps moving from one building to another), lecturers that are booted out at the end of the term for no reason. Is this some kind of circus where some wicked employers (yes, I am talking about both locals and expats) play around with money and people's emotions?

2- Little to no professionalism! Now, do not get me wrong, I have met some professional lecturers who are able to pass on their knowledge to students, but the vast majority explain inefficiently while students pretend to pay attention! Educators are strained and even furious because of the dishonest supervision. To make matters even worse, students who have special needs (e.g.- students with mental disabilities are taught along with the students who are perfectly fine and given the same exams as them. How can any lecturer explain to students with disabilities and students who are good/ excellent in the same place? How is that fair to students who are mentally ill? Even if the instructor focused on these students and gave them kindness and devotion (bear in mind that most lecturers are not qualified to deal with some special needs), how can other (average) pupils learn if the professor only focuses on students who are not as capable as others? That would only waste class time. If the lecturer does the opposite and explains to everyone the same way, students with certain weaknesses would be left behind.

There should be at least one person (who has a degree in compensatory “special” education and schooling) that can explain to them while not interrupting the rest of the class (E.g. someone who communicates with people who cannot hear to get the material of the class across…etc. )

Students with severe walking and muscle tone/ bone issues are provided with wheelchairs, are allowed to be escorted by their servant which is something that I actually like, but then again that brings forth the issue of bullying that I’ll mention in the next point.

3- Bullying and the deficiency of adequate consoling services.
To prove my point, I’ll narrate an actual life event of a girl I knew well. She was sensitive and smart, she was also hard-working. She would do well in all her exams and projects, but one day she just troubled one of the lecturers involuntarily and she was expelled.

She was not exactly expelled for upsetting that person, but because she resorted to getting reassurance and counseling in college. She opened her mind and heart to one of the college counselors about what happened to her, the stress she would go through and all the bullying she was coping with from various lecturers and students, and not a few days after that, she was expelled for saying the truth about what happened to her. The counselor she trusted and treated as a friend reached to the administration and used her case to get a pay out of it. She exposed her to the managers and exaggerated it, flagging her as a threat to herself and others, although she was innocent. 

How miserable is it that someone reaches out to someone they consider as the only hope in their dying world, only to be torn apart by the very same person to climb their way to their personal greed and career success.

Before you say that she has done something horrible that’s worthy of being expelled, she did not, she merely was taken advantage of. I repeat that the girl was going through horrible abuse and stress at home in addition to tension and bullying in that jungle they metaphorically call a college, and she reaches out to the only person they found in their way imagining them as the only hope and light in darkness just to be shocked by them climbing their way on the expense of the sanity and emotions of her, a young girl that can easily be damaged.

I know some of you might be like, this is an individual case in one of the colleges but not all managers do that. WRONG. Many students have been booted out for nothing, just like many lecturers have been dismissed or expelled for nothing.

4- the old rules specifically said that students who used to get below 115 in the national CEPA won't be accepted, but my friend who got around 82 could enroll and it wasn't just an exception. My friend with a grade of around 101 could join the English levels. Which is against the rules that say that students should get at least 115.

5- the food in their cafeterias (at least in the city I'm from) is very horrible. The essence and scents are alright and so is the texture of the food, but many students have gotten ill from the same two places. I've gotten food poisoning there at least twice. If you can't fix your academics and the education there is broken beyond repair, at least ensure that your students can eat healthy food without having to fart and crap themselves like they swallowed an entire bottle of laxatives.

In all honesty, I think the government has a lot to work on in HCT, it's better for the government to completely shut down, replace or take serious action to alter the way things are there.

There are no rights for students, no right for employees and everyone is in such a mess.

I feel ashamed of being a local with this immoral place in my city. I don't like exploitation and I feel very helpless. Please save our education. Stop letting ignorance prevail.

Someone please make a move.

Feel free to add any additional statements and post this to your blog. I’ll be looking forward to reading everyone’s comments.

To be continued