Job Discussion Forums

[guangho]

[ctmiezio]

Well Yanbu is nice for a variety of reasons. It was built by the Americans with wide streets and lots of trees. The town is clean and safe and very quiet. It's very peaceful here. The oceanfront is very nice for strolling in the evening. Most of the Saudis who work here are used to foreigners and almost everybody in town speaks English. We're 3 hours from Jeddah for shopping... 2 hours if you speed. Also the beaches outside Yanbu have some of the nicest and most unspoiled reefs in the world. I'm told camping in the desert is a lot of fun, I see people doing it a lot, though I never have myself (pregnant wife).

Every time I go somewhere else in Saudi, I'm very pleased when I return to Yanbu.

[scot47]

Yanbu built by the Americans ? News to me !

[Stephen Jones]

The Americans built Jubail too. That is to say Bechtel was overall responsible. Much more responsiblity then than now (they are still supervising Jubail II) which explains why the standard of fittings, streets and planning was much better twenty years ago than now.

I have to admire Scot 47's ability to live in ignorance of what is going on around him. No doubt he didn't realize that the US State Department has hundreds of people working in all branches of the Saudi government until the agreement lapsed in 2000.

[scot47]

So far I have, alhamdulilah, been spared a trip to either Yanbu or Jubail. Unlike my good friend Mr Jones, I am also at a lowly level in the scheme of things in Saudi Arabia and am spared contacts with more elevated ranks.

Mr Jones would do well to remember the dangers of coming to the attention of those in high places.

[Bebsi]

When I originally posted about UCY, I said I would add more in due course. I have been extremely busy of late, too much so to bother with dealing with matters that are, essentially, part of the past for me and therefore not all that relevant.

I intended to do so, as I had promised. However, as I glanced through the forum a few days ago (I was on a short vacation), I noticed the recent postings and couldn't help but smile. Nanosecond is correct in everything he says about UCY and I feel that it is now time that I wrote about my experiences there. I also feel that it is appropriate that I reply to some comments and assertions made by Ctmiezio.

I started at UCY last September. I knew the coordinator from previous employment at Hafr Al Batin Community College, where I had spent two happy years in the past. I was returning to KSA and had received an offer that seemed, on the face of it, better than my old job at HBCC. I had known him from one semester there as dean, his last before he went to work in Yanbu, his home town in fact. I recalled him as a man who was not perfect at his job, having some unpleasant traits such as a predilection for snooping on teachers, and a tendency to make whimsical decisions which could change the same day. However, these failings seemed relatively minor, and appeared to be problems that were not by any means insurmountable.

However, within a short time after my arrival at UCY, I realised that the regime was quite different indeed to that prevailing at HBCC, an institution that was/is directly under the control of KFUPM. UCY, for anyone who is unaware, is a college under the directorship of the Royal Commission, also a reputable body. Given that it was an RC college, I expected certain third-level standards to be maintained both regarding staff and students. I also took the view initially that as it was a new institution, teething problems were inevitable.

As time went by, however, I realised that what was happening there was not just �teething problems�. I also became painfully aware that he had considerably greater autonomy than he did at HBCC, and was using his new-found power to his own advantage.

At this point, I will digress, and comment on the politics at RC Yanbu. I am very much led to believe that he does not get on very well with certain individuals at Yanbu Industrial College. Indeed this is quite common knowledge. These are, I believe, personal differences that have existed for many years. After a time, it very much started to appear to me that he was using his position as coordinator at UCY as a nose-thumbing exercise in relation to YIC, and he repeatedly referred to YIC, saying that he wanted UCY to be better. This struck me as unprofessional in itself, given that they are both constituent colleges of the same organisation. There were, during this time, many operational difficulties becoming apparent in the college which were being ignored, despite better advice to the contrary from many of his colleagues.

The following is an account of my own experiences at UCY, and should indicate why I would not, if asked for advice, recommend it to any teaching colleagues. It is a sad litany of incompetence and the precedence of petty interests, with the real losers being the students and those entrusted with the task of teaching them. Of course, these are my own experiences and in describing them, I also recount the experiences of many others. A minority, it would appear, have a different perspective of the place, and that is their opinion.

During my time at UCY, in addition to the usual teaching load of 20 hours, all teachers were ordered to remain on campus for the whole 9-hour duration of the working day. Whenever I questioned this rule, various reasons were proffered. I was more than once given platitudes about how much better it was for the college that we do this. On asking how this was actually so, I was told that we were a �centre of excellence� and that we were different to other colleges in KSA and the Gulf generally, that indeed we were going to be the best. I still failed to see how the morale-killing policy of making teachers sit around all day doodling on paper was going to contribute to this, and was told that it meant teachers would do more preparation if they had to sit in the staff-room!

I pointed out respectfully that as professionals, we didn�t need four or five hours a day to prepare our classes, and that nobody would object to having to do an �office hour� or even two (in KFUPM colleges, one per day is the norm). Indeed, I made the point that as a professional I would stay at my desk in any event long enough to ensure that my normal ancillary duties were fully carried out, as in any other normal third-level institution, in addition to being available for student consultations for a reasonable, given period. This was not considered good enough, however.

After some time, I and a small number of others just started a policy of leaving the staffroom when our duties were fully completed. We differed in our approach. Some (who shall remain nameless) did it sneakily, saying that they had a great job � their best ever, even - and didn�t want to jeopardise it. Fair enough! My own approach was different. While the package in financial terms was OK (I wouldn�t say it was wonderful by any means), I was not prepared to tolerate a job where I was browbeaten and treated with not even a shred of respect. If challenged on this, I was fully prepared to defend myself.

For a while, nothing was said (I strongly suspect this was due to the severe teacher shortage), although I was very aware that I was being closely observed. I was waiting for matters to come to a head, which they did towards semester�s end, when another teacher arrived and it became evident that the coordinator was on stronger ground.

By this time, strong tensions had developed. Many�I would venture to say, most�of the faculty/staff members were unhappy with the dictatorial, interfering management style.

In any event, our coordinator ended the semester by saying at a meeting that we would have to stay in for 9 hours a day, and that this would be rigidly enforced. He then, in a real morale winning exercise, went into a rant that we weren't doing enough work, and that many of us were "bad teachers". I asked him there and then to elaborate, and he came up with vague nonsense about getting reports of some people using mobile phones in class, not doing lesson planning, etc. I told him he should then refer individual matters to the teachers in question, and not make a general issue of it.

He ignored this, and went on to say that he would �watch� people, that we must all spend five hours a day doing lesson planning, and he wanted to see the lesson plans, to "know (we) were doing our jobs right". He told us that because we objected to sitting around all day, we were not committed to the college. I reiterated my earlier point that it was not normal practice in third-level establishments, and that it wasn't necessary for an experienced teacher to spend five hours preparing for four classes, and at that point he started making threats about enforcing contractual provisions, and so on, and would send out the warning letters if necessary. I firmly believe that even if he wanted to dismiss a faculty member, he would not have the power to do so, as coordinator. However, this was a moot point: the whole atmosphere in the place was foul and intolerable by this time.

The coordinator�s incompetence reached into other areas too, of course. Among them were:

� Making a rule one day, only to change it the next, or maybe even the same day, as Nanosecond has said. Rules would change as if they were leaves on a providential breeze;
� Going around yelling at some teachers in class, one young teacher was constantly harangued in front of students for minor things, such as being 30 seconds late;
� Insisting we wear ties (now abolished) in order to appear better than YIC;
� Being obsessed with minor procedural matters, but he wouldn't dream of tackling some of the real issues, such as no real educational plan, no proper syllabus in English or other subjects, low morale, etc. Essentially, he was obsessed with appearances, and as long as we wore ties and spent 9 hours a day in the staffroom, he would go around saying UCY was better than YIC because management had more control. Ultimately, this is what it was all about: control and petty one-upmanship games;
� Talking at length about total quality management but demoting coordinators at random if they had the temerity to question his �often ludicrous- dictates;
� Coming in and throwing his weight around at various times, mostly at 8 am, shouting at people to go to class, and barking orders. Not to put too fine a point on it, he was an inveterate snooper;
� Asking for advice from the English coordinator and teachers, then proceeding to ignore it, introducing his own rules and going against all normal pedagogy by telling us we must do things in his way, that he was in charge, sometimes even congratulating himself on being an innovator. One example was deciding to divide an integrated-skills course into four separate skills, while using the same integrated-skills books, simply because �we already have them bought�. This policy was eventually postponed to the next semester, and I don�t know if it is being currently pursued.

If ever he was challenged on pedagogical grounds, he replied with a smug smile, something on the lines of "well, at UCY we do it differently, that's what makes us a centre of excellence".

Regarding the student body, UCY has students who are, in the main, unsuited to third-level life. They are poorly motivated, and many have low intellectual abilities and undeveloped learning skills. They are admitted more on the basis of home-address than anything else, it would appear, being all from the Yanbu area. I feel quite sorry for them, as they are being taught subjects such as physics, maths and computers exclusively through English despite having, in most cases, an extremely weak command of the language. Mostly, they are lost young men, without any direction, focus or guidance, who are being set up for failure due to the lack of a proper vetting process, any career guidance or any study skills programme. This is not to mention the absurd insistence that they study difficult subjects (although the coordinator DID refer to maths and physics as �Mickey-mouse� subjects) entirely through the medium of a language they don�t understand, using advanced English textbooks. Inflicting this on students is nothing short of disgraceful.

There is a Women�s Campus also, where student performance appears to be considerably better. Perhaps the lack of direct interference due to the male-female divide has made a difference. Generally, I do not feel qualified to comment on matters at the WC.

There is unquestionably a serious staff-shortage at UCY, and it is having significant problems with recruitment. I have heard from former colleagues at HBCC that many of them have been contacted in an attempt to persuade them to move to UCY. I cannot venture to imagine what KFUPM thinks of such behaviour.

UCY has zero official status as a University, as far as I am aware, and the title was simply a grandiose one concocted in a moment of deluded grandeur. It certainly doesn�t perform or act like a University. There is no proper academic programme, the college has no degree or diploma programme that I am aware of, and there is no proper coordination between the various academic departments. In addition, what is suggested or recommended by individual department coordinators is largely ignored.

This is tragic, as the idea of a University in Yanbu, one with a technical slant, is indeed a good one. Something similar in nature perhaps to KFUPM, but serving the western half of KSA, would be a very useful institution indeed, in my humble opinion. I think the RC has its heart in the right place, but the current establishment known as UCY is, I believe, a joke that will simply sully the reputation of its mother organisation unless matters regarding the management and policy are urgently addressed.

I also believe that any serious professional going to work there will not be serving his career well. In addition to myself, two more teachers, including the English coordinator, left UCY. They were on loan from YIC, and were, to put it very mildly indeed, overjoyed when accepted back to YIC. That left three English teachers remaining, and the only good thing I can see arising from all of this is that it should leave them in a better bargaining position. However, as has been pointed out by Nanosecond, it also leaves them with double the work and class-size! Perhaps Ctmiezio, who has now in fact been made English coordinator (although he modestly omitted this fact) can fill us in on the current situation.

I would have one criticism to make of the RC itself. I am very aware that shortage of accommodation is a problem, but at present UCY teachers are living in houses and apartments that are in the middle of Muslim areas, without any extra security whatsoever. In happier times in KSA this would not have been a problem at all, and I am very much in favour of mixed communities in principle. However, given the delicate political times in which we live, it is not such a good idea. While I had no problems whatsoever with most of my neighbours, I certainly felt hostility from some quarters, especially in the vicinity of the Al Sumeri Mall. The apartments in that area, certainly, provide no security or protection whatsoever. Yanbu, in my experience, is a place where tensions DO exist, and because of the very small number of westerners now living there compared to some years ago, security is a serious issue that cannot be ignored.

For those considering a move to UCY, I hope I have given an insight into the conditions and management style that prevail there. I am not saying that some would not be happy there; some, such as Ctmiezio appear to be.

I will of course, be happy to elaborate even further on any of the above points. I will address Ctmiezio's earlier points in a further posting, as this is probably long enough!

(some names edited out - MOD)

[scot47]

WOW !

If anyone doubted the need to choose an employer with caution, let them read Bebsi's posting here !

[Bebsi]

I will now address some points raised by Ctmiezio.