Job Discussion Forums

[BrownSauce]

I've just posted this on the General ME Forum, but I feel that my colleagues here in the UAE will have more pertinent comments to make about it. Am I mistaken?

The stifling of ideas

EDUCATION in the Arab countries is where the paternalism of the traditional family structure, the authoritarianism of the state and the dogmatism of religion all meet, discouraging critical thought and analysis, stifling creativity and instilling submissiveness. The 2004 Arab Human Development Report observed:

Communication in education is didactic, supported by set books containing indisputable texts in which knowledge is objectified so as to hold incontestable facts, and by an examination process that only tests memorisation and factual recall.

Curricula, teaching and evaluation methods, the AHDR noted, �do not permit free dialogue and active, exploratory learning and consequently do not open the doors to freedom of thought and criticism. On the contrary, they weaken the capacity to hold opposing viewpoints and to think outside the box. Their societal role focuses on the reproduction of control in Arab societies.�

The main classroom activities, according to a World Bank report, are copying from the blackboard, writing, and listening to the teachers. �Group work, creative thinking, and proactive learning are rare. Frontal teaching � with a teacher addressing the whole class � is still a dominant feature � The individual needs of the students are not commonly addressed in the classroom. Rather, teachers teach to the whole class, and there is little consideration of individual differences in the teaching-learning process.�

One investigation into the quality of schooling in the Middle East found students were taught to memorise and retain answers to �fairly fixed questions� with �little or no meaningful context�, and that the system mainly rewarded those who were skilled at being passive knowledge recipients. Although that study was published in 1995, the World Bank�s 2008 report concluded that many of its criticisms still applied thirteen years later. Moreover, the few Arab countries that have recognised this deficiency have generally failed to change the classroom practices.

If this makes young Arabs well-equipped for anything at all, it is how to survive in an authoritarian system: just memorise the teacher�s words, regurgitate them as your own, avoid asking questions � and you�ll stay out of trouble. In the same way, the suppression of their critical faculties turns some of them into gullible recipients for religious ideas that would collapse under serious scrutiny. But it ill-equips them for roles as active citizens and contributors to their countries� development.

The article continues here...

http://www.al-bab.com/arab/background/educational_reform.htm

[15yearsinQ8]

what is YOUR opinion? see the ME branch for mine.

i hate when posters cut and paste an article without their comment - kind of is ironic considering the article that was cut and pasted

as my thesis director put it 'you put a string of pearls around your neck, don't in your thesis please'
wilga rivers, rip

[Sheikh N Bake]

Don't what your thesis? I am not correcting your English; I would just like to know what the quote actually says.

At the Petroleum Institute teaching freshman tech writing, I couldn't even get students to use their own examples of a fixed idea, let alone to come up with their own ideas. My example of pollution was the incessant roaring and diesel fumes of those annoying Mitsubishi small trucks all over the Emirates. to a man, all my students cited the Mitsubishi trucks, after being told it was only my example and I expected their own examples.

[veiledsentiments]

It made a little sense to post this in the General Middle East section for newbies. Anyone who has taught for more than a semester in the Middle East knows this all too well.

But, I don't see the necessity of a double posting of an article that is no more true of the UAE than any other other country of the Gulf, Levant, or North Africa.

VS

[freesoul]

Again, we just can�t simply stereotype about more than 50 million Arab students spread over vast geographical zones stretching from Morocco to Oman.
I think, that World Bank Report is written by people or group of people who have pre-conceived ideas and prejudices.
It is ignoring the fact that with the uncontrollable spread of technology and electronic communications, a new breed of IT natives is emerging all over the world and in the Arab world. Those new IT-minded youths will no longer depend on the classroom in receiving passive knowledge. They will, are exploring online life themselves some time in their evening in their small rooms where they switch on and become out of reach.

[007]

[scot47]

Well said, ferocious feline ! Bravo. You are right !

[northsew]

15yearsinQ8 wrote
as my thesis director put it 'you put a string of pearls around your neck, don't in your thesis please'
wilga rivers, rip

Wilga Rivers was your thesis director? Impressive

[15yearsinQ8]

although litttle gray haired old ladies are close to my heart, she is the cause of my total disdain and loathing for all things australian

don't be so impressed, i withdrew my first attempt and on the second asked for and received an deadline extension
thank god for her patience

i'll send you the link, pm me

[ardiles81]

Back to the OP

Why bother educating your people for jobs they won't want to do anyway. How many times have you heard a mutter of shame teacher when the discussion of jobs comes up and they do not want to be anything either than the owner of a business (never expanded upon), lawyer or ambassador.

It is easier and cheaper for employers to get expats of various stripe to the job more efficiently than most emiratis. By way of analogy think how much safer the roads would be if the police were predominantly western expats. Those who are educated abroad and connected are the only ones who count.

While there is free money around and no need to work for anything there will be no need for much in the way of education as a means to self -betterment or opportunity.


Never forget a little education and free thinking is a dangerous thing in a no-party state.

Here endeth the lesson

[celticbutterfly]

ardiles81: thou speaketh the truth.
HEAR HEAR!!