Job Discussion Forums

[wilberforce]

I had a friend who was turned down by a gov't institution because he didn't have a DELTA!!! The person in charge lets a nit run the whole shebang. Get this: a BA is not good enough for the nit, neither are teaching qualifications. An MA is not good enough unless you have a DELTA. Whoever heard of this numbskull type of thinking? Apparently the person who is now in charge has a DELTA but no undergraduate degree and only a distance MA. According to my old Gulag buddy who worked with this clueless type in another job, the person who runs the shebang has never been a full time on campus university student. So someone who never graduated from high school and got qualified as an adult student tells people with perfectly good BA degrees they're not qualified? They won't get too many people if this is their requirement.
In my book, someone who has never been a full-time university student at some point in their life doesn't really have much knowledge of tertiary education.

I can't imagine someone putting down a BA in ESL or TESL because it isn't a DELTA. It is more likely because this person never studied as an undergraduate and doesn't know how higher education really works. A DELTA is a good qualification but after all, it is no better than an MA and in many place is not seen as either an equivalent for a BA or an MA. You only need a high school certifcate or to qualify as an adult student with life experience to do the DELTA. So how can teaching qualifications and a BA be seen as not valid?

They had better do a rethink if they want to attract native-speakers. A DELTA is no more valid than a BA in TESL of ESL or TESOL. So this smacks a bit of racism too - there are no DELTAs offered in the US. Very few qualified Arab teachers have a DELTA but many of the ones with a BA in TESL are darn good. I know as I worked with some for more than 10 years in the Gulag and other places.

[veiledsentiments]

Too often the rules in places in the Gulf depend not on anything logical or sensible, but on what some higher up "has" or more often on what nationality they prefer to hire (ie... their own). For instance, if they insist on a DELTA, they can thus exclude Americans or as happened many years ago in Oman where I was. They were insisting on an MA, and about 80% of new teachers were ending up American. The British management were not happy with this so they lowered the requirements to a BA + CELTA. So it goes...

VS

[wilberforce]

[paperback]

I do believe this is the woman who made old P the Rocker's life a misery when he worked with her before coming to the Gulag. She failed her Delta at least once and needed help with academic writing. I think he proofed at least one or two of her essays and not thanks for that. She had no clue how to write an essay, naturally if she didn't finish high school. He said she was very snotty and kept picking on people and putting them in their place. Evidently someone with a big ego and no substance.

She wasn't at my interview. There was a bossy local lady and a stout pleasant woman who tried her best to play down the boss's rude abruptness. It's the old adage, people who had no education and get some think they know everything. What we 'educated' people learn at the end of the day, is that we know nothing as life is a whole learning curve and having a diploma doesn't make you an educated person.

[lollaerd]

I think you're right. She's the one he used to work with. She also offended P the Rocker's Thai wife who complained to anyone who would listen how she always criticized P the Rocker and put her down. She told her she didn't know how to raise their kid! So if this is the woman who is now in charge, no wonder the people who work there are afraid. She's got a nasty way of insulting people. It always amazes me how often the nasty types claw their way to the top and get into management. It must be ruthlessness. Anyway, old P is back in Thailand and loving it.