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ADEC, beware! The truth at last.

ADEC, beware! The truth at last.

Old Jul 16th 2012, 7:46 am
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Default ADEC, beware! The truth at last.

ADEC - Here's the truth.

I WILL STICK TO FACTS.

This posting refers to teachers of Cycle 2 & 3 boys.

The lifestyle is lovely and you can really enjoy yourself in the evenings and weekends, but teaching here is difficult, to say the least.

I have been teaching for twelve years, mainly in Scotland. I have enjoyed a successful career, so far, but good teaching jobs are scarce and promotion is difficult to achieve. With the rising cost of petrol and the government’s attack on teacher’s pensions, I had been struggling, financially. Like many others, I was attracted to ADEC as a lucrative alternative. I had taught in the middle-east for two years, previously, so I had some knowledge of the customs and culture here.

Firstly, the recruitment agency, ‘Teach Away’, in Vancouver, lied to me about the salary and the conditions. They are clearly playing a ‘numbers game’ and just getting as many ‘bodies’ as possible over here. The interviews are a mere formality and they will send anybody that has any kind of teaching qualification, including inexperienced teachers. For the record, I took the job, knowing a little about what to expect and the salary was still pretty good, but not as much as I had been told, initially.

There was a huge meeting, when we arrived in Abu Dhabi and we were promised help and support. To date, there has been none. You are very much on your own and you have to battle against the red tape, bureaucracy and the seemingly vindictive and deliberately obstructive tactics of the ADEC staff, most of who are Emiratis who have had their jobs specially created for them by the Government. They will employ six people to do the job of one and this makes everything so frustrating and long-winded. You have to get a stamp for everything and they often take long breaks, so you often have to wait for hours before you are able to proceed with things that are not even really necessary, they just make it necessary! They do not think ‘outside the box’ and they are stubbornly inflexible. Even the simplest tasks are made into a major fiasco and a new teacher will spend weeks chasing around town to get certificates attested (at great cost, too), visas processed and medical cards obtained etc., etc. This is very stressful.

There was no induction at my school, I was just given a timetable and told to get on with it! Three of us planned the first day’s lessons, not knowing the level of our students, how many there would be or what English they had previously covered. I was not prepared for the riotous rabble that would be waiting to confront me in the classroom. Bottles of water were being thrown across the room, students fought with one another and the noise was deafening. There was barely a student that even acknowledged my presence. That was to be the way for the rest of the year. These boys would rather be doing anything than learning English, which they say they do not need, as they will either become soldiers or policemen.

Students consistently misbehave dreadfully and they constantly talk and shout in Arabic, throw things around the room, fight and come and go, as they wish. There are always interruptions from students visiting from other classes. They just turn up at the door, walk in and begin loud conversations with their friends, taking no notice of the teacher, whatsoever. Getting the students into class is also a difficult one. They arrive and leave whenever they like and you cannot do a thing about it. One student told me (he was one of the few that could string more than a few English words together) that the reason for the bad behaviour is that they are flogged mercilessly by the Arabic teachers, so they see the 10 English lessons per week at 'down-time' and they know we cannot understand them, so they can say what they like. Classes are ‘bedlam’, and it is impossible to even think about trying to teach the students. The best that we all manage is to write stuff on the board for them to (hopefully) copy. When the siege is over, you might get 45 minutes respite until the next ‘battle’. The western EMTs (English Medium Teachers- formerly known as LTs or Licensed Teachers) teach between 25-30 periods per week and our Arabic counterparts teach anything between 12 and 22. I have 30, including a Grade 7 class, which we are not supposed to be teaching.

They all cheat, too. The majority of students copy from the better students, who collaborate willingly. Exams, too, are a farce - if a student gets a bad mark, the Principal, or one of his lackeys, will order you to 'up' their mark. Exams are a ‘cheat-fest’ with crib sheets and answer sheets being passed around, quite openly. One teacher even completed his son’s English exam, passing it on to him before the exam had finished. The students will harangue and hassle you, at the end of each term, pleading with you to give them high marks, even when some of them have hardly done any work the whole term.

The School Management is often hostile towards westerners and they can transfer you or sack you at the drop of a hat. My Principal hardly speaks any English and he conducts all business with me in Arabic, with a translator. He makes no effort to be friendly and it’s pretty obvious that he would rather none of us westerners be there. My HoF is a nice guy, but he’s a complete amateur. He could not organise a piss up in a brewery. He’s always the last teacher to arrive and always the first to leave. Oh, and his command of the English language is very poor. He’s Head of the English Faculty!

You are made to feel very small.

A western teacher will always be blamed for bad behaviour and it is never the students' fault. The management will believe an Arab student rather than a western teacher, always. I have never had an issue with behaviour management, ever, but this is different. The social workers, in the school, sit drinking coffee most of the day and they rarely support the teachers. They usually sit drinking with the students and blame the western teacher, never the student. There is a great deal of racism involved, and I am not exaggerating. We had cameras installed in our classrooms from March. The Principal sits watching us struggle and never comes in to support us, but he is watching US and not the students.

Resources are virtually non-existent and you have to make up your own. Support from the PPP in the school has been amateurish, to say the least. Everyone in the PPP seems to be feathering their own nests or covering their backsides. They are not interested.


I have friends here who were sacked, by e-mail, with five weeks of the academic year left! None of them had any warning! When confronted by my friend, his principal lied to him, saying that ADEC had sacked him. It was later discovered, after much digging and to-ing and fro-ing, that it was the Principal. Principals have 100% say in whom they employ and who they sack. This particular principal is thirty-five years old, deeply pious and religious and has never taught a class in his life. Let's hope my friends can find jobs before the next academic year. My friends were not paid their full salaries & gratuities, their furniture allowance being deducted from their final pay, without any discussion or warning. The banks have also held on to their final payments (government policy, apparently) – I hope that they eventually get their money. Some teachers have done 'moonlight flits' and they just disappear in the night - having taken money for furniture allowance and unpaid bank loans. I do not condone that - it is dishonest and unforgiveable - but I can understand why they want to escape.

We were also promised a pay rise, after one year’s service. This was written in our contracts. However, we were told, around December, that we would not be receiving a pay rise due to austerity measures. Later, it was revealed that all Emirati public sector workers were to receive a 100% pay increase, by order of the ruler and to commemorate the 40th anniversary of the UAE. Austerity?

Everything looks rosy on the outside, they are great at dressing things up and papering over the cracks, but the whole lot is rotten from the top down. No-one will admit that the whole curriculum is totally inaccessible to the students and they carry on, fudging marks and cheating. The whole business of ‘educational reform’ in Abu Dhabi is a sham. The whole thing is bogus and I’ve heard whispers that the fellows at the top do not want the reform to work, for reasons that I am not prepared to discuss here.

If you read the daily press releases from ADEC, you might be fooled by this duplicitous and untruthful organization. I still have a year on my contract and I will be back in September - only because I honour my contracts and I need the money. I am dreading it, but I will endeavour to complete one more year. I will need re-training and possibly some kind of therapy after this awful experience. The money is good and Abu Dhabi is a great place and I have many great friends and colleagues here, but I shall not be sad to leave in a year's time - if I last.

This has been an interesting experience and one that I do not ever care to repeat. It is NOT teaching. If you are a teacher with integrity and honesty, or you are faint-hearted, this is not the job for you. BEWARE!
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Old Jul 16th 2012, 8:18 am
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Default Re: ADEC, beware! The truth at last.

It's sad, but absolutely nothing you said surprises me in the least.

Of course the people at the top don't want the ones at the bottom to get an education, they would then question the people at the top and that will lead to revolt and rebellion.

Ignorance is bliss!
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Old Jul 16th 2012, 8:25 am
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Default Re: ADEC, beware! The truth at last.

Kix,

Absolutely right. It's been said more than a few times. I'm not sure that the teachers that come here really know what they're letting themselves in for - and it's all for nothing!!!

There are regularly people in tears, after a day being abused and belittled.

Had I known, I would not have given up my job in Scotland. Now I am stuck here.

I hope prospective 'teachers' (if they were teachers before, they will cease to be teachers here) read this and think very carefully about coming here.
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Old Jul 16th 2012, 8:28 am
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Default Re: ADEC, beware! The truth at last.

Originally Posted by stirlingsingle
Kix,

Absolutely right. It's been said more than a few times. I'm not sure that the teachers that come here really know what they're letting themselves in for - and it's all for nothing!!!

There are regularly people in tears, after a day being abused and belittled.

Had I known, I would not have given up my job in Scotland. Now I am stuck here.

I hope prospective 'teachers' (if they were teachers before, they will cease to be teachers here) read this and think very carefully about coming here.
But that said, there are many teachers here who I know are very happy with their jobs, they don't work at the Arabic schools though, but the British/American/International curriculum ones.
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Old Jul 16th 2012, 8:40 am
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Default Re: ADEC, beware! The truth at last.

Yes, those school are totally different. Private schools in the UAE vary greatly, but I worked in a good one, a few years ago. We had all western staff and the curriculum was British.

Teaching in the state schools in Abu Dhabi means that you will be one of only a handful of westerners. The whole curriculum, bar English, is conducted in Arabic and all communications, parents' evenings, assemblies and whole staff meetings are conducted in Arabic, too.

If you want to work in the private sector, here, I could recommend some excellent schools. However, should I break my contract with ADEC, I will be 'blacklisted', so I am stuck in this Hell for another year.

Private schools will pay teachers c.7000AED-C.14000 AED per month, depending upon the school.

ADEC know that it's tough for westerners here, hence the inflated salaries. There are a great deal of desperate people, mainly from the USA. They come for the benefits of health care and the salaries are much greater than some States, Arizona, for example. Whilst these people keep coming, ADEC can continue to treat us all like sh*t.
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Old Jul 16th 2012, 8:56 am
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Can't you quit and get a job at BSAK or Brighton or Al Yasmina..I know teachers at all these and they love it.
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Old Jul 16th 2012, 8:59 am
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Default Re: ADEC, beware! The truth at last.

If you break the ADEC contract, you are blacklisted. Those schools you mention are not allowed to employ 'blacklisted' teachers.

By the way, BSAK is a fantastic school and I shall certainly be applying there for 2013-14, if I survive this!
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Old Jul 16th 2012, 9:00 am
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Default Re: ADEC, beware! The truth at last.

Originally Posted by commander
Can't you quit and get a job at BSAK or Brighton or Al Yasmina..I know teachers at all these and they love it.
They wouldn't give an NOC at a guess. Sounds hellish. There is no way in a million years I would work for a Government body in the Middle East. Not only are you dealing with fecktards daily you are one phone call away from a mate of a mate of the Managements son taking your job if he wants it.

Screw that, I would rather work 60 hours a week.
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Old Jul 16th 2012, 9:30 am
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Default Re: ADEC, beware! The truth at last.

So sweetie, just keep your head down, let the idiots do what they want, smile sweetly, collect your money and give them the finger next year when you apply for a nice job in a proper school xxx
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Old Jul 16th 2012, 9:54 am
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Default Re: ADEC, beware! The truth at last.

Originally Posted by Patsy Stoned
So sweetie, just keep your head down, let the idiots do what they want, smile sweetly, collect your money and give them the finger next year when you apply for a nice job in a proper school xxx
Sage advice..apart from flicking the bird of course ;-)
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Old Jul 16th 2012, 9:57 am
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Default Re: ADEC, beware! The truth at last.

It's just depressing to hear that the next generation won't be an improvement on the current one. Is it the same in girl's schools. The local ladies that I know all seem to be much more engaging.
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Old Jul 16th 2012, 10:13 am
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Default Re: ADEC, beware! The truth at last.

At the risk of sounding like Dot Cotton:

do not throw pearls before swine, lest they trample them under their feet, and turn and tear you to pieces

Target one able child- agree here with Al Dente, a girl student may be better option(the more family wasta,the better) Invest all your energy and experience into that individual,ignore the rest.Do not succumb to the mosh pitt,maintain your pride and professional/vocational dignity,guide that one student to success
One success story against the odds will be looked upon favourably/admirably by future employers as it is widely known that the role you have undertaken is akin to what some people do under a big tent with a red jacket,top hat and a big fluffy lion....

Bite the bullet until end of contract then get into a good school,a good life can be had in the Emirates by teachers.

Best of luck.

Last edited by Eva; Jul 16th 2012 at 10:31 am.
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Old Jul 16th 2012, 11:13 am
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Default Re: ADEC, beware! The truth at last.

Aren't boys & girls taught separately in local schools?

Interestingly, I have been contacted by quite a few teachers working for government schools in AD who have been mistreated by their employers. General advice should probably be to look for work in the private sector for any teachers wanting to come to the UAE.
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Old Jul 16th 2012, 12:15 pm
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Default Re: ADEC, beware! The truth at last.

If that is the quality of education can you imagine the situation when ENEC starts up those big reactors and 60% of staff are locals? eeeek.

2020 is the switch on date apparently, most of those young guys should be about the right age to employed at that site.
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Old Jul 16th 2012, 12:53 pm
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Default Re: ADEC, beware! The truth at last.

Boys and girls are taught separately. The boys wear dresses, too!
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