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[thisone]

Warning all ESL & vocational teachers, do not go near this place! This supposed education institute in the UAE is a joke and anyone who values their sanity and professional integrity should steer clear. It�s true that all workplace have their shortcomings, but this one has it from all sides:
- if you have good management attitude but bad student attitude, this is potential tolerable
- if you have bad management attitude but good student attitude, this is potential tolerable
- but if you have bad management attitude AND bad student attitude, this is completely intolerable
The student�s attitude is to come to class, play all day, cheat in exams and get daddy to pay of the management so they remain there regardless. The management�s attitude is to treat the play like a business meaning the customer (in this case the students) are always right so they will tweak their grades even though they are not doing anything. Hence the turnover of good, decent instructors at NIVE has been considerable and has even shocked HR, but still nothing is done about it. Let�s break down the various issues here:

Lack of academic integrity

1) This is supposed to be an English medium vocational institution. However, they do no provide a foundation year in ESL (Business English) for the students, most of whom are below elementary level English! So they are teaching IELTS level business classes to elementary level English students and expecting them to keep up! This would be like teaching chemical engineering in Chinese to a French person with no Chinese�

The current provision they have in place for students who struggle with their English are extra voluntary tutorials. But these are beyond inadequate in quality, quantity and speed in getting these students up to the level they need to be to fully benefit from their business, IT and communication courses. So from the very beginning, the students enter into courses beyond their language level and understanding. This

2) As they are taken in with inadequate language abilities, it is no surprise that they then go on to fail the various courses. However, the students are still passed on very low standard work. Customer is always right, even when the assessment/assignment answers are wrong�

3) To help the students pass, they even introduced the �open book� exam concept i.e. permitted cheating! The students are actually allowed to bring their class notes to the assessments and allowed to refer to them during the �test�. This system does not assess what students have learnt (or indeed haven�t learnt), it only shows how well students can read their notes! (and in some cases, they can�t even do that�)

4) The students tend to get 4 assessments over the duration of each course. And the ratio to pass the whole course is simply to pass one assessment! In other words: 1 in 4 term assessments i.e. 25% of 100% = pass. Is my maths wrong or does anyone else see something wrong with this picture�

5) Now, there are students who still fail with this wide pass margin i.e. students who fail all 4 assessments in the course�or even just plain don�t show up to class! However, those students are still allowed to continue to the next level/term in the institute. This is unfair to student in question as they will continue to struggle. But it is also unfair to the other students who are of the correct ability level.

All this results in students ultimately graduating without adequate qualifications for their workplaces after their �training�


Lack of disciplinary integrity

It should come as no surprise that the if the management are so chilled in academic integrity, there will be little or no concern when it comes to disciplinary integrity as well.

Academic misconduct: The students happy plagiarise work from other students as well as the internet for their homework, assignments and in class assessments.

Inadequate procedures to deal with issue: For in-class assessment, I was told by the Communications Subject Head to write which students were cheating on the front of their assessment papers during class. I then reported them to the subject head and the student advisor. However, nothing was ever done about this i.e. the institute never followed through with their own disciplinary measures. No warnings or penalties (e.g. lowering of grade or straight fail) were issued to the students involved. This is not in keeping with other education institutions throughout the world

Behavioural misconduct: The students antics in class include:
- being late to class
- talking in class
- wasting time in class (silly questions/unnecessarily disturbing lessons)
- sleeping in class
- eating in class
- playing with laptops during class � games / msn / streaming videos
- playing with mobile phones during class � talk / text / play
- mobile not silent during class
- being directly rude to the teacher

Inadequate procedures to deal with issue: When I told the students to stop doing this, they complained to management. So, rather than saying anything to them in class, I recorded their antics on a student behaviour list and submitted it to the student advisor at the end of the week. But, big surprise, nothing was done.

When one student�s behaviour became particularly unacceptable, I informed the Head of Academic Affairs. However, he did not take responsibility for dealing with incident and simply bounced it back to the Communications Subject Head, who then did nothing herself. There is absolutely no support for teacher when such incidents occur. In fact, as the customer is always right, management then tries to blame teacher, questioning their classroom management skills! This place is truly a joke�

The crazy woman�

It seems that every educational institution in the UAE has to have a crazy woman in play somewhere, and �Nincompoop Institute with Vile Ethics� is no exception! How on earth she managed to be the head of communications is anyone�s guess! This woman is completely toxic. In any case, here�s a breakdown of some of her craziness whilst she�s had the position:

1) Time wasting and bias insinuations: I can honestly say I have never met such an insecure person! She craves subordinate attention, meaning putting people down and also butting into conversations to thrown in her opinion�when she has no idea what the conversation is even about.

2) Working out of the staffroom: She rose quite stink about this because people were then out of her reach, meaning she couldn�t readily boss them around. Therefore there was no medium to stroke her fragile ego, poor thing�

3) �better� than the other management staff: One time she said I hadn�t sought adequate counsel on problem students. When I said I had from someone else who was in fact in charge of keeping the students in line, she was sarcastic about their competency. In other words, she was trying to insinuate she was better than anyone else: insecurity at its peak!

4) Purposely lying about student issues: she would simply invent false issues that students took issue with when in fact they hadn�t�

5) Learning Resources: she continually made false insinuation that the learning resources I created were inadequate�only to then demand I make copies for her when I was leaving! You�ve got to love the blatant hypocrisy�

6) Meeting work deadlines: This woman blatantly lied that I hadn�t met deadlines e.g. assessment creation dates to head management when in fact she had simply rejected the work I had done! Over the course of 2 weeks, she kept bouncing my work back to me tell me to rework it slightly�only to then say it was not relevant to the course subject content and I had to create a new one = completely incompetent. This comment should have come at the very beginning of when I first handed the assessment to her! But then she tried to say it was I who was really late submitting my work.

7) Team work: being reprimanded from this woman on this topic is a joke beyond sanity! Indeed, the constant snide putdowns from the craving of subordinate attention tells you how well this woman functions in a team! In fact, various people left the nincompoop institute because of her nincompoop attitude alone! Why the heck has upper management don�t nothing about this damned fool?

8) Coercing students in her favour: In order to have more fodder to try and undermine the other teachers, she actually incited the students to complain against them. As she could not break other teachers professionally, she strove to do so with student politics. After all, the �customers� are always right! So got the students to say the teacher(s) are bad and higher management will then do away with them. Well come to the world of cooperate education!

This woman is a bold face liar. Some have argued that her attitude is remnant of the Soviet era i.e. cower under your superiors and be tyrannical to your subordinates. But at all costs, do what you can to survive, including manipulating reality to the max!

The money man�

Now here we come to the Executive Director i.e. the Nincompoop in charge! Or perhaps it would be more accurate to say the money chaser. Here is the man in higher management who has set the �customer is always right� tone to the institute. He himself is totally incompetent. And in order for no one to report his antics to HR, he acts like a complete tyrant, treating the staff heinously and trying to inject fear into them, meaning they worry about keeping their jobs rather than exercising professional integrity. Additionally, he has his little foot soldiers in the middle management like the �crazy woman�. This means they themselves can behave like fools with impunity as I previously described.

There were however some teachers who weren�t so feckless and they spoke up. But still HR did/does nothing despite teacher AND student complaints. In other words, he has adequate ties somewhere in the UAE education sector keeping him in play. So, as he is uncheck by HR, he runs the place like cooperation. In fact, there was talk of him taking backhanders from some parents to keep their kids (and when I say kids, I mean 18 years old and above) in play. Can you say �farce� anyone?

In closing

So, I did this little write up to warn teachers who value both their professional integrity and sanity to steer clear of this place! It�s bad for students as the management put their future on the line for the sake of money. They are in effect ruining their future prospects by giving them false passes and not teaching them anything. It�s bad for the teachers as there is no support for them from the HR. The money man and his minions i.e. all the subject heads (including the crazy woman) run the show....and there is no check on him. This place is a joke to the concept of education and higher learning. So in closing, my advice is to STEER CLEAR OF THE NINCOMPOOP INSTITUTE!!! That is unless you want to end up in a whole different kind of institute�a �certified� one!

[veralynn]

Wow!
What the hell is NIVE? I have never heard of it. Where in the UAE?

[helenl]

Here's the blurb from an ameinfo.com post

About National Institute for Vocational Education (NIVE)

NIVE was established in 2006 under the directives of HH Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum, Vice President and Prime Minister of UAE, Ruler of Dubai, in order to provide national students with the opportunity to gain specific job competencies geared towards enhancing their employability. The main mandate of NIVE is to develop an employable workforce in accordance with the current and future needs of the labor market and the aspirations of the people of the UAE. To this end, NIVE has adopted a coherent vocational educational framework, offering clear progression routes and exit points to the world of work, which is necessary in a modern, knowledge based economy.

NIVE is an autonomously managed organization, wholly owned by KHDA.

The Knowledge and Human Development Authority (KHDA) was established by virtue of Law No. 30/2006 by HH Sheikh Mohammed Bin Rashid Al Maktoum, Vice President and Prime Minister of UAE, Ruler of Dubai. KHDA aims to develop the education and human resource sectors in the Emirate of Dubai, bringing it on par with international standards and prevalent best practices, while keeping in mind the requirements of the job market.

From the OPs remarks, this looks like where students who can't cope with HCT or IAT go to become contributing members of society.

[seven seas]

Shame- these kids could be achieving something...

[BrownSauce]

My sincere thanks go to thisone for having the nerve to set the record straight. For far too long, institutions such as this have managed to con teachers into accepting situations that are way below par, so it's really good to see one standing up for integrity and blowing their cover.

The sad fact is that many of the paragraphs above could be applied to almost any further education college in the UAE - some universities even. This is the nation's real shame, together with the fact that they collaborate in the wasting of a generation of children, who are ultimately left with no skills and have few prospects.

Well done, thisone - anybody else like to add something of the same or similar?

[Grape99]

The writer of the main article is giving an clear and a truthful insight into the workings of NIVE. In fact, the writer is too lenient with her story.

ANY STUDENT AND TEACHER SHOULD KEEP AWAY FROM NIVE (NATIONAL INSTITUTE OF VOCATIONAL EDUCATION-UAE). YOU ARE WASTING YOUR TIME AND EFFORT AT THIS INSTITUTE.

[thisone]

Unrealistic workload

One thing I forgot to add in the original text was the unrealistic work load that the teachers are lumbered with! When teachers are first recruited, they are given no proper orientation on the academic workings of the institution. Then they are given no realistic preparation time to deliver courses or indeed to create them as is often the case at NIVE, particularly specialised courses which are out of the ordinary.

For example, teaching IT classes can be challenging (MS applications, web design, etc). Designing an IT course catered for a particular industry can be further challenging e.g. an accountant would have to know different applications on MS excel to a lawyer. However, teaching IT classes for software to design jewellery requires more preparation, particularly when such software packages are new to the teacher themselves! Teachers from all departments (Communications i.e. ESL, IT, Business) were presented with this situation.

Thus the teachers are given no class OR course preparation time (stress)
Thus the teachers are given no class OR course preparation guild lines to follow (confusion AND stress)
Do you see why this place can land you in a totally different kind of institution�