Report Number 2
Well, what could I possibly say after spending four years teaching the spoilt, moaning and unmotivated princesses of my particular HCT outpost?
Well, what could I possibly say after spending four years teaching the spoilt, moaning and unmotivated princesses of my particular HCT outpost?
Well, apart from the rude and
deceitful students that I’ve already mentioned, there is the so-called
management. Quite simply, the managers that I have encountered here are the
worst I have experienced in my 30 years of teaching. Firstly, in the years that
I have spent here I have never seen them support the teaching staff – not once!
– even when it’s crystal clear that the students are the problem. In my view
there is a deep vein of ethnic jealousy here, as the locals resent being told
how to behave on their own turf, even when they are clearly wrong and know it.
Saving face is always more important than getting to the bottom of a problem.
Secondly, there is hardly
ever any communication about anything even vaguely important, and when there
is, it’s always left to the last possible moment, leaving us all with no time
to make proper plans. In most cases we get to hear about matters either second
hand or … not at all! Sometimes we have to rely on the students to fill us in
on what’s happening, as they will have been informed by email, but not us. On
one occasion we only found out a vital piece of news about the college from a
newspaper; only the day before it was due to happen did our supreme managers
deem to tell us!
This lack of concern – or
just total incompetence – extends to many areas of college life. We get called
into meetings with just a few minutes of notice. When we ask for some guidance
or training on important matters, perhaps to do with exams or syllabus changes,
it just doesn’t happen. No attempts are ever made to give thanks or appraisal
for a job well done – but then again, how would the useless Emirati managers
even know? Almost without exception, the only time that our great masters
decide to get a move on is when it concerns bad news - issuing reprimands,
warnings and dismissals. So no news is usually considered to be good news by
the humble servants.
However, by far the most
frustrating and worrying feature of working here, at this particular branch of
the HCT empire, is the corruption. Whilst I have not actually seen it myself,
there have been cases of certain teachers ‘helping’ students in exams. What I
can claim to be true is that marks have been altered to boost exam grades,
students have been permitted to re-take exams many more times than college
policy permits, and teachers have been pressurised to pass failing students. If
you object to all this, you will be escorted out of the college and denied any
gratuity or owed monies.
To conclude, my experience at
HCT has shown it to be an entirely unprofessional organisation. My college, in
particular, should be closed down and its Emirati managers re-employed as
shop-assistants or bus-drivers. As for its ‘graduates’, they are fit for
nothing – nothing at all! In short, it's by far the worst educational
institution that I have ever worked at. The saddest thing is that the whole
system is in denial; the local managers, the ones who are steering this limping,
chugging monster off the tracks, have not the slightest idea how to do their
jobs, and equally they have no clue how much they are despised by us teachers
for their inability to do those jobs.
And that, despite being all very sad, is absolutely true.
And that, despite being all very sad, is absolutely true.
