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[School Police]

Many teachers and staff resigned from MADAR International School / Edugates recently because of maltreatment, breaches of contract and violations of written agreements and promises. The provided accommodation is definitely below par and cannot be categorized as being �comfortable� for professionals, as the UAE law requires. The Ministry of Labour�s Inspection Office was involved and affirmed that many of the teachers� units were unhealthy due to a myriad of problems such as the dominating presence of unhealthy odors, leaking ceilings and improper air-conditioning. The inspector reached this conclusion even though he visited the concentration-camp-like accommodation premises after major improvements had taken place. He was also lucky enough to miss a tour of the rat-infested �recreation� room and the home-to-the-lizards laundry room with its archaic, half-functioning machines. Although appalling and disgusting, problems on the accommodation front somewhat faded in comparison to the academic transgressions, child abuse, and discriminatory and racist practices against less-than-lily-White teachers and local students by some non-qualified, foreign racists. In fact, the Ministry of Education is now investigating MADAR International School.

In addition to the total scarcity of resources, the school suffers from a severe drought in the area of qualified teaching staff and a famine in the area of professionalism amongst senior administrative staff. Imaginary rules change without notice as per administration�s fickle frame of mind, leaving late salaries as the only norm and consistency in this unstable environment.

The only three things you can count on at MADAR International School are performing slave labour, being under surveillance 24/7 on school grounds and on accommodation premises, and receiving your salary late, or never receiving it at all in some cases!

[ak_hope]

Hello School Police & all,

Everyone should definitely be careful before they send their kids to school or apply for a teaching position at MADAR International School, Al Ain, UAE, or any other school run by a company called Edugates, for the following reasons:

-The so-called "comfortable" accommodation provided by the school (that was supposed to parallel Western standards of living) turned out to be an old school building that was hastily transformed into scattered stinky rooms with leaking ceilings and stained walls and carpets and old, dirty furniture. The promised recreation room turned out to be a rat-infested storage room with cracked walls and a leaking ceiling. When teachers asked about the exact address of the provided accommodation premises before signing the contract, a false address was provided by the school's director and owner of Edugates.

-The school is always late in paying salaries. They do not adhere to paying the salaries at the end of every month, as the signed contract states. Some teachers are still waiting for summer pay dating back to the 2003-2004 academic year!

-The people called �principals� and �headmistresses� at the school are more like shadows or puppets for the Edugates owner who is the official school director. Their job is not to deal with academic issues, but rather to control the sweatshop called MADAR International School and report every teacher's breath or sneeze to this omnipresent director. The school is run like a police state where teachers are not allowed to speak to other teachers during lunchtime or coffee breaks, without the principal and headmistress roaming the area eavesdropping, giving disturbing stares or even barging into the conversation.

-During the negotiations stage, the director offered nothing but lies and deceit regarding the school's facilities and resources. He boasted the presence of a �Multimedia Resource Centre� at the school, e-learning software, and a long list of books and resources that all turned out to be non-existent at the school.

-Teachers are forced to teach subjects in which they are not qualified, nor agreed, to teach.

-The school does not adhere to the signed contract regarding the maximum number of actual teaching hours. No overtime pay is offered for additional working hours.

-The administration does not adhere to a set salary scale. Qualified foreign-hire teachers with M.A. degrees were being paid less than B.A. degree holders because of their skin colour and ethnic origin. For that reason, some teachers were ordered by administration not to discuss their salaries with other teachers.

-The school provided false information regarding the time it takes to commute to and from school on the school bus. Teachers were told that the bus trip would only take 15 minutes, but in reality each trip took more than 45 minutes.

-Regrettably, the school made a lot of false promises to teachers and painted itself as a real institution of learning. A number of qualified local- and foreign-hire teachers were shocked by the real state of things and left the school when no improvements were offered by the administration. Most of the remaining foreign teachers are not qualified to teach in their own countries and are holding on for financial reasons and supremacy gratification, as some of them are racist and have been caught physically and emotionally abusing children and saying negative things against Islam and the Arab culture to students and to other staff members. The school's administration, on the other hand, boasts the presence of these foreign �teachers� for marketing purposes and totally neglects their offenses.

-The administration falsely claims to parents that it follows international teaching principles, for mere marketing and profit-making incentives, while in reality the school lacks many of the most fundamental instruments for effective learning. The school has no library, no additional books or "multimedia" resources, as it claimed, and lacks any organized educational or extracurricular activities. As mentioned earlier, a large number of teachers at the school are not qualified and are not accepted by the UAE Ministry of Education as teachers. Such teachers are registered as clerical staff members and such, yet they lead classes and incompetently teach students at MADAR International School. The school's administration believed that intermixing qualified and non-qualified teachers would compensate for the incompetence of the non-qualified teachers. However, this is not acceptable, and the students in the end fall victim to such immoral practices that aim to save the administration some money. Now, after many of the qualified teachers have left, the situation at MADAR International School has only exacerbated.

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School Police, please check your private messages.

[veiledsentiments]

I don't know that this required a poll as I would expect that even the majority of teachers in the Emirates have never heard of this place. But, thank you for the exposure of the problems there. I understand that the UAE government is involved in investigating the problems there.

Reading this was why I avoid recommending any of these small international schools. Too many of them seem to be managed like this one.

Good luck finding new employment.

VS