Job Discussion Forums

[sheikh radlinrol]

[triedtolive]

Hi All,

Thanks for all of your responses, they are most interesting.

I heard and saw that ACK were advertising for ESL and Business Management Instructors.

Is this a good place to teach? Do they pay OK?

I also heard that their second President in two years had just resigned.

How stable is this organisation?

Was he asked to leave or did he really resign?

I don't want to work for an organisation that may not be here in two years time.

[miski]

Sheikh- re the road cleaners , their job is awful and the prvate employers who bring them here as slave labour should be punished- think some new laws may be passed soon, we ordinary citizens can only d our best to help them in some little way.

Triedto: re ACK it will be here in 2 years-they all are, I don't know of any school , no matter how bad that has closed its doors after opening, there is always some poor idiot who will pay to go there and always some teachers who will work there. Why not visit on a visit visa first and check the places out ?

[veiledsentiments]

[miski]

Sheikh- fyi: every kuwaiti citizen who works in the private sector receives an allowance ranging from 150KD to 260 KD depending on their qualification.....as an incentive to work where real work is done.....ie not in the ministries lol.

[qas419]

Recently I have come across a job announcement in the Chronicle of Higher Education whereby The American University of Kuwait seeks faculty members. But what an announcement? full of prejudice and partiality. They unashamedly and explicitly ask for specific race and education . This is a quotation from their announcement: "The medium of instruction is English, and native speakers of English are preferred; American education and/or teaching experience required." This is outrageous. The person who wrote that might be thinking that only native speakers can teach English and only graduates of American universities can have proper education. Shame on you AUK.

[veiledsentiments]

I'm not sure why you are so upset. If you look at the ads for many schools which are managed or based on a certain country's curriculum, they prefer those that know and use their own system. I expect that if you head over to the Australian University of Kuwait, you will find lots of Aussies. The British international school probably has mostly British or British educated teachers.

Note that it says native speakers are 'preferred' not required. It is hardly "outrageous" though for you as a non-American educated or non-native speaker, it may be frustrating. I see no mention of race anywhere in your copy/paste of the ad. You may not be aware that native speakers English come in all races and religions. Even black and brown Americans are 'native speakers.'

What the person who is writing the ad is thinking may be the fact that the students who enroll in these institutions expect and often demand 'native speakers.' They are paying for an "American" or "British" or "Australian" education, so they expect to see nationals of those countries teaching them.

They do have a point, even though we know that it is not based on the best of reasons.

VS

[miski]

[qas419]

Veiledsentiments & Miski:
Yes, some of your points are valid but still I feel that a job announcement from an educational institution should not be phrased like that. Certainly, such a requirement may have worked in Britain or America but I doubt if it can work in a mono-cultural and mono-ethnic society like Kuwait. First of all, competent and well qualified American or British or even Australian teachers will hardly accept a job in a war zone area unless s/he is either retired or desperate or adventurous. I don�t know if you have ever visited the American University in Sharja, which is the nearest country to Kuwait: 60% of the staff are not native speakers of any colour (white, black or brown) and more than 85% of the learners come from different ethnic background. I think this is one reason for their success.
If the university was built on an American soil then, I would have minded preferring an American Educational system but because it is in Kuwait and most of the learners will be of one culture, religion and educational background, naturally a reference to a specific education is unnecessary. If you look at most American universities in the Middle East, notably, the American University of Beirut, Turkey or Egypt or in Sharja, you will find that some of the courses they offer are completely un-American ( Islamic Religion, Arabic Language, & History of the Arabs and more). By un-American, I mean these courses are not included in any American university curriculum.
Well, they don�t have to mention the word �race� as such to mean a particular race but it is clearly understood. And I don�t think by �native speakers� they mean black or even brown native speakers; they mean �white� and Caucasian native speakers. Anyway, let us wait and see how AUK proceeds.

[veiledsentiments]

I fear that big bunches of your message make no sense at all.

War zone? What are you talking about? There is no shooting in Kuwait and none of the employers are paying extra for any such thing... and there are already teachers of various nationalities at AUK, and I know a couple of highly professional American professors who work there and don't match any of your criteria of being retired, desperate, or overly adventurous.

I have actually visited AUS and found the usual mix of international educators found in the Gulf - actually there are quite a few American educated and American passport holding Arabs teaching there.

And, you really need to check a map to note that Sharjah has Bahrain and Qatar, not to mention a big long stretch of Saudi Arabia and Iran between it and Kuwait. And how shocking that in an Arabic speaking Muslim country they actually teach Arabic, Muslim studies and the History of their own people. If you have paid any attention, you will have noticed that all the "American University of Wherever" teaches the appropriate language and history courses for the country in which they are located. I bet if you search you could also find universities in the US that teach Arabic and have an elective on Middle East History.

Obviously if these students transfer to the US to complete their education, these courses may or may not transfer. Although I suspect that they may be able to get foreign language credit or the history requirement if there is one. But, kudos to them for teaching these courses for the majority of students that will never leave their home countries.

AUK has been around for a few years now and has managed not to have waves of people showing up here to complain... so they must be doing OK. And I don't see one thing wrong with them saying that they prefer native speakers (which their tuition paying students tend to insist on) and wanting people who are familiar with their basic system. It sounds like good business sense to me.

VS

[qas419]

Veili, this time you are completely out of tune. What you are putting forward has nothing to do with my main concern. I simply argued that a �prestigious� university like AUK should not make a job announcement like the one in the Chronicle of Higher Education. If it was in the US, then there would be no problem. This was my argument and I still believe it was wrong. Ok, you would not agree with me, what do you think of this job announcement?
�The Arab University of New York seeks Arab instructors to teach Arabic courses; native Egyptian speakers are preferred; Egyptian education and/or teaching experience required.�
In my view this will be also wrong because there are thousands of Americans who can teach Arabic. Furthermore, there are thousands of Arabs who studied through Lebanese Educational system or Moroccan system but not necessarily Egyptian.
My second point that I want you to know is that wherever there are American Marines, in any country in the world, it is a war zone. There are more than sixty thousand Americans in Kuwait, Qatar, Bahrain, Iraq and in Afghanistan. What do you think they are doing there? Playing American football?
They are there to kill, sometimes terrorists and sometimes innocent people. And it is not strange to see Americans work in these countries. Haven�t you read Hemingway? Adventure is part of American dream irrespective of age.

[trapezius]

^ That's the way ads run in Gulf Arab countries. Nothing that can be done about it.

[miski2]

Yes Trap- eg.that is why the UK Special Forces boarded British Airways flight 149 on Aug 1st 1990 and landed in Kuwait- to conduct Operation Iscariot from Kuwait- and the British govt let it happen by allowing the plane to take off when they knew the invasion was under way, thus endangering the lives of its passengers. No compensation has been paid.

[sheikh radlinrol]

[miski2]

Hola-thought you were disappeared.

Apparently that is the code name the Special Forces who admitted being on the plane called it. Where you there at the time? Who did you work for? maybe we met! LOL.Didn't you get a UN payout-very little mind you.