Job Discussion Forums

[Noor]

Two articles in as many days on the poor state of male education in the Emirates.

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Fears over education�s gender gap

Emirati boys are posting lower examination scores and dropping out of high school at a much greater rate than Emirati girls, newly released research shows.

It also found that among pupils who complete secondary schooling, many fewer boys go on to a university education.

http://www.thenational.ae/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20091106/NATIONAL/711059868/1010

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Boys focus on their financial goals

Emiratis said the �gender gap� in the educational system came as no surprise, even as a report warned that only 27 per cent of Emirati males in public schools go on to pursue university degrees.

�It�s sometimes a financial decision and sometimes the lack of interest in education,� said Safiyya Ahmed, a retired principal at a female public school whose son attended an all-boys public school.

�Schools don�t do anything to make the students like studying. It�s just learning by heart, boys especially. As soon as they finish they just want to get the money, they don�t want to go back to studying,� she said.

http://www.thenational.ae/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20091106/NATIONAL/711059856/1010

[D. Merit]

Every picture speaks a thousand words - well at least the one on the front page of 'The National' accompanying this story does.

In the foreground - student arriving late.

Next to the latecomer - a student looking at the latecomer, paying no attention to the teacher.

On the whiteboard - the target structures 'What you like?' 'What not like?'

I can see why they left out that picture for the website version of the story.


Ho Hum.

[veiledsentiments]

The problem is that the boys don't need to study. The government gives them all their basic needs... a huge dowry to just marry an Emirati bride... which includes a new home if their family can't provide it. And then they can get a job if they want it just because they are Emirati or they work for the family business. The best and the brightest (and/or the richest) are sent overseas to study.

That leaves the universities to be filled with females. Those that weren't terribly bright or terribly interested drop out and marry in their early teens. There is still that cultural bias against female education that spurs many of them on. They keep at it because it gets them out of the house and they love the social aspect... the chance to show off their clothes and jewels.

One place I saw a glaring differential between the sexes was at the Kuwait Faculty of Medicine. The classes were 80% female and they were exceptionally intelligent young women who challenged you to challenge them. In my group, only one of the men managed to pass the foundations English. My next semester, I was teaching all the repeater men from all groups... with only a couple females. My failures had whined to me about how the women were just smarter than them, which in this case was true (the best of the young men had been sent to overseas medical schools), but I assured them that it was because the women worked harder... and had worked harder all through school. That made sense to them as they knew that they had skated through schools and never studied English because they didn't think they needed it. I left after this semester, but always wondered if any of them made it through to become doctors... probably not.

Make students "like studying"?? Who are they kidding... very few people anywhere in the world like studying, but they want to succeed, have a job, and survive, so they study.

VS

[Sheikh N Bake]

I enjoyed the all-nighters on exam eves. And didn't even take any speed. I also lost my corkscrew and was forced to survive on food and water. And Visine and aspirin.

[veiledsentiments]

In all my years of schooling, never once did I do an all-night study for any exam. I closed the books and went to bed at my usual time. I attended my classes, kept up with the homework, took notes... and the evening before the exam I reviewed my notes.

VS
(and usually got A's...)