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veiledsentiments
Joined: 20 Feb 2003
Posts: 17644
Location: USA
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 Posted: Sat May 29, 2010 10:06 pm Post subject: |
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The difference tends to be private universities versus government. Government is 2 months and you get extra pay... private it's 5-6 weeks and everyone has to do summer school for no extra pay.
It's about tuition versus free government universities.
VS |
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balqis
Joined: 30 Jul 2006
Posts: 373
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| Posted: Sat May 29, 2010 10:56 pm Post subject: |
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Yes, tends to, but only tends to, since at the same time many a private uni would also offers a handsome two-month relief and respite period. And a summer term with extra pay.
Shortened vacation and the summer term as a must, all of it is accursed!
So not tertiary! So not academia! So cruel...
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veiledsentiments
Joined: 20 Feb 2003
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Location: USA
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| Posted: Sun May 30, 2010 2:44 am Post subject: |
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It isn't tertiary to have to sit at our desks all day like little factory workers or secretaries either... not to have professors teaching 15-18 hours a week...
Best not to compare... 
BTW... which private university(ies) in Oman offers 2 months vacation and no summer school requirement?
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sliderama
Joined: 11 Nov 2007
Posts: 90
Location: al reef
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| Posted: Sun May 30, 2010 3:50 am Post subject: |
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| this year, i think most unis are giving 10 weeks due to the August Ramadan and Eid coming early September. But I believe the colleges are still stuck leaving early-mid July and coming back mid-August. (somebody correct me if I'm wrong... ) |
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isabel
Joined: 07 Mar 2003
Posts: 510
Location: God's green earth
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| Posted: Sun May 30, 2010 5:11 am Post subject: |
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Yeah- I was pretty shocked at the unpaid summer work. It is an extra 6 weeks! Fortunately it is short hours and 4 day weeks- and they have to scramble to find enough work for people to do. It is all a matter of control on the part of the management. There is enough time to let everyone have 2 months, and it would even save them money (weeks are spend in August and September with no summer school and you still have to turn up, air condition your office, etc.) It is entirely and utterly illogical and wasteful.
Frankly, I don't think the language center is liked very much by the admin. The "real" faculty gets 2 months, and apparently some of them object to the language center "teachers" getting the same. There hasn't been a pay raise in a couple of years, so now the pay is the lowest in town, literally.
On the other hand, there are those in the language center who manage to cut every possible corner, teach poorly at best, and abuse every angle, and run the show. When their running of the show is threatened, well, a cage of hungry wet cats doesn't come close to describing things. Nasty!
As I said- it is too bad, because it could be a good gig. A little topiary- trimming the tree of the rot at the top and the bottom- would go a long way towards rectifying the situation. Sucker growth is always so bothersome and unattractive. |
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isabel
Joined: 07 Mar 2003
Posts: 510
Location: God's green earth
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| Posted: Sun May 30, 2010 5:55 am Post subject: |
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| veiledsentiments wrote: |
The difference tends to be private universities versus government. Government is 2 months and you get extra pay... private it's 5-6 weeks and everyone has to do summer school for no extra pay.
It's about tuition versus free government universities.
VS |
Even with doing summer school, there is enough time for people to get two months. Some people take two weeks unpaid leave, because there is nothing to do when you return except keep your desk chair hot and your office cold. It would cost the unis nothing to give 2 months- except their control. It is the same with the week in the mid semester the students have off, and the week between spring term and summer school. As it is, the whole spring semester is worked with one day holiday, and then there is no break before the hot hot summer school term. It is an abusive schedule, and lends itself to a serious abuse of sick leave. And endemic bad morale and complete lack of motivation. |
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balqis
Joined: 30 Jul 2006
Posts: 373
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| Posted: Sun May 30, 2010 8:08 am Post subject: |
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Dhofar Uni offers two full months of vacation and the summer school is paid extra for those who wish to do it, as far as I know. My knowlegde of Oman is very scanty. Recently I received a pretty appaling contract from a uni in Sur which offered only meagre 4o days of the summer time. I thought they were simply exceptional. Asking if there was a summer term into the game and unpaid too was too cheeky an idea to even cross my traditional - i.e. naive - mind...
I know of uni/college establishments - not in Oman - that offer say only 7 weeks of vacation but only because they want the teachers to arrive 2/3 weeks earlier for various admin tasks as well as for a so-called course-development/new faculty induction period.
So even if the vacation is shorter than sixty days, still it remains a separate fact deserving condemnation teaching a summer programme for nothing and as a must, and a major offence in itself. Basically it spoils the traditional crown of jobs in education - the long summer time!
Isabel, don't you have a pother amongst the ESL faculty and a lowered retention rate on account of the summer term being a must, nay, an unpaid must?
Chances are it is going to be changed soon?
And, isabel, as you have pointed it out, you were shocked to find out the summer-term set-up, it looks like it was not made crystal clear in your contract that there is a hidden shameful trap by the end of the academic year.
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isabel
Joined: 07 Mar 2003
Posts: 510
Location: God's green earth
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| Posted: Sun May 30, 2010 11:41 am Post subject: |
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| I had been told- but it is better in Oman than in UAE, and a living can be made here, unlike Poland, so you just live with it. Just take your old 4 wheeler into the mountains and enjoy the environment. |
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veiledsentiments
Joined: 20 Feb 2003
Posts: 17644
Location: USA
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| Posted: Sun May 30, 2010 2:24 pm Post subject: |
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| isabel wrote: |
It is all a matter of control on the part of the management.
Frankly, I don't think the language center is liked very much by the admin. The "real" faculty gets 2 months, and apparently some of them object to the language center "teachers" getting the same. |
In these two comments you have hit on the situation at so many places all over the Gulf. It is like they are afraid that you may be seen off campus - doing nothing - by someone and that would suggest that they can't control your employees. I recall this coming up at SQU when there were complaints that there were teachers using the pool at the faculty club on campus when there were classes in session. My reaction was ... so? As long as it isn't "their" classes, what does it matter?
The content faculty and top management tend to look down their noses at us TEFLers as "mere MAs" so you can imagine what they think of those that don't even have an MA, but only a mere CELTA. Whenever there is any talk of cost cuts, it is always loudly suggested that the foundations program is where it should be. There will be talk that "they" shouldn't get housing (or at least not the nice flats) or not get education allowances for their kids... etc.
I found these two factors to exist to differing extents in every Gulf university where I worked and heard it from others at places where I haven't worked. (HCT was not like this... but there were few PhDs in the content courses... so there wasn't this territorial jealousy - not did it come up outside the Gulf at AUC in Egypt - where mgmt is both American and Egyptian...)
It is likely a cultural issue... a more Arab idea of how things should be managed and more of a "class" structure.
VS |
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