Job Discussion Forums

[cubbie]

is an MBA useful?

if so, in what respects?

[veiledsentiments]

For what?

This is a board for English teachers... can't see much use for an MBA to teach subject/verb agreement...

VS

[Wigwam]

Yes, an MBA is very useful if you want to get into management within teaching organizations. A friend of a friend who has worked at MLI and other places, got his MBA and has been offered a management job in Morrocco. He has been teaching for a while but needed to move on in his career. An MBA also gives you the flexibility to move out of teaching if you have had enough.

[Afra]

Several people at HCT have done an MBA with an educational management focus. Useful in education if you want promotion and useful if you want to move on.

[Wigwam]

An MBA in Educational Management from Leicester University UK is worth checking out

[veiledsentiments]

I must say that I find the idea of 'education management' to be a rather horrifying idea. Could you imagine trying to 'manage' the average Dave's board poster? Herding cats... Personally I went into EFL because I liked teaching. Of course I had already had a career in business previously and my goal was to never again have to spend my time in interminable boring meetings. ugh...

In all of my years teaching around the Gulf, I never met anyone in management in the EFL area that had an MBA, so apparently employers don't consider it a requirement (nor have I seen it asked for in a job advert). At HCT those with them were teaching in the business department. Perhaps there were some over in the ivory towers of the admin building in AD, but they had no relationship to EFL.

But it could be a ticket out of EFL to a better job and career... Or if one of your goals is to eventually start your own language school somewhere.

VS

[Afra]

In my previous post regarding MBA and education management, the people I was thinking about are EFL teachers with some degree of responsibility within the system. It certainly isn't a requirement of employment but it's a way up the ladder for teachers not particularly interested in Linguistics who need a post-graduate qualification. This is current information; education, like everything else, moves on. Even in the Gulf.

[veiledsentiments]

It doesn't really move that much onward... people just paste on new degrees... degree creep rather like the grade creep thing... a problem all over academia, not just the ME...

Funny how in spite of it, the salaries are still stuck in the early 90's and benefit packages drop while teaching hours and class sizes expand...

VS

[Wigwam]

In the private sector in the Gulf, an MBA would be looked upon more favorably than an MA. It is only Universities that, however misguided, insist on teachers having an MA even though the students really need a teacher who can teach and help them learn. Ideally, the ME would not require an MA but rather a teaching qualification that met the demands and needs of the institution, the students and the workforce they were being prepared for.