Children are running wild all over the school, and one student breaks his arm; a third-grader runs at full pelt down a flight of stairs to pick up her little sister; a woman teacher is threatened with dismissal and ordered to pay back her promised salary because her original qualification certificates have been lost; students who went to a school last year are refused entry to the same school this year; a group of teachers who are so broke that they can’t afford to eat try to devise a plan to obtain their overdue salaries; children in kindergarten are forced to buy hot-dogs; Ahmed can’t read, write or understand the directions on his worksheet.
All these scenarios are real, true and happening in private schools. And if you think they affect only the expatriate population, think again; many UAE nationals attend these private schools too. When I look into their trusting brown eyes and see how they are no better-off than the schoolchildren in America’s worst ghettos, I am deeply sad and angry.
These events are common knowledge; if anything, they are too common. The situation is shocking enough now, but it may become worse; the Government has always given more independence to private schools – which, curiously, are seen as somehow “better” – so now they are concentrating their attention on government schools. This week Sheikh Mohammed bin Zayed, the Crown Prince of Abu Dhabi, called for radical changes in the public education system at every level. And in the Northern Emirates there is a new programme that will eventually retrain about 10,000 teachers to address a variation in the quality of teaching in schools and ensure all teachers are adequately trained.
The implication is that all the problems are in government schools. But in the book Education in the Arab World: Challenges of the Next Millennium, the Emirates Centre for Strategic Studies and Research warns us that private education may not be all that it’s cracked up to be: “The Ministry [UAE Ministry of Education] has adopted a number of programmes which aim to overhaul the education system… this, however, leaves out a major area of the education system, for example, private schools, which are operationally under no direct supervision by the Ministry of Education, with completely different philosophies, objectives and delivery systems, some of which may not be educationally or culturally appropriate.”
It’s sad that this paragraph is not put on table napkins in English and Arabic at KFC or on shopping bags at the mall, because it is critical to what is happening to children in these schools.
Shiny marble floors, new twists on the curriculum – British with an Islamic twist, American books with a traditional Indian flavour, or a savoir-faire Francophone style: all of these are just marketing ploys. No amount of snazzy charity bazaars, western teachers, smooth-talking administrators who swear that their teachers are the crème de la crème of the Western world, or colourful ads in the local newspapers will reassure you that your child is in safe hands and will receive a proper education.
The main problem is the lack of responsibility shown by the owners, managers and head teachers – many of whom seem to be concerned only with dirhams. Indeed, the teachers themselves often have that same priority, but they quit anyway because the conditions are so bad. In many cases, western teachers are essentially paid tourists. Since no expat woman can stay in the UAE without either a husband or a job, you find many young female (there are very few male teachers) graduates here taking teaching jobs as a last resort. And even though they may be sincere, with the best of intentions, many of them haven’t a clue.
I remember when I first came to the UAE, and just to secure a residence visa, I taught. I was given a long list of things to do, such look in my students’ bags for their homework, writedown their homework in their diaries: I was their maid, not their teacher. In some schools, teachers are expected to help out at all times – from serving lunch to collecting the head teacher’s baby from the nursery. And for all of that you get no visa, no gratuity, and no labour card. So many good teachers are quick to say: “I’m out of here.”
There are many factors that lead to these problems. The certification process for teachers is so bureaucratic and expensive that very few people go through with it. Many people are recruited straight out of their living rooms. At some schools the hiring process is no better than a flea market: next thing you know the school is demanding not only that the teachers pay for their own paperwork, but if they want to leave the management demands that they pay their future promised salary as stated in their “contract”. Who loses? Everyone.
As an educator right now, I am witnessing a psychological massacre of a nation and the intellectual castration of its male population, who in many schools are left to do whatever they want, who sit in classrooms with no teachers for months on end, where no one is interested if they learn or not, because they are Emiratis or stubborn Arabs and will make it, somehow, anyway. Just think of what the future of the UAE holds, especially now that the batch who went to the best schools in Europe and America are getting older. If this new generation can’t write a sentence without 10 mistakes, who will lead the nation?
Maryam Ismail is a sociologist who divides her time between the UAE and the US
Maryam Ismail