Job Discussion Forums

[Agnes of Oman]

UGRU is looking for 30, maybe up to 40, ESL/EFL teachers for the Fall 2011 semester - why is that? It's due to the University's ill-thought out plan of 2010 to have UAEU students attend their local HCT for English language instruction rather than come to Al Ain. As part of this, 20+ teachers from UGRU, only five of whom volunteered, were told in June 2010 that they were being relocated to either Madinat Zayed or Fujairah in August to teach at HCT. Five days before going on summer holiday a meeting was held and they were "asked" to sign a paper agreeing to this relocation. When asked why a paper needed to be signed when they had signed contracts, the UGRU admin person holding the meeting ranted a little louder but never answered the question. As for the consequences of not signing the paper, an A3 piece of paper was taped to the wall of the meeting room and the teachers were told they could copy what was written on it but that it was not being distributed to them in writing. As luck would have it, there was one A4 copy being passed around which ended up leaving the room with one of the teachers. This was scanned and emailed to a UAE English language daily newspaper. The smuggled piece of paper stated that if the teachers did not sign/agree to go they would be expected to resign, effective immediately. If they did not resign and refused to be relocated, they would be terminated, effective immediately. Not the kind of people I'd want to work for.

The likelihood of UAEU embarking on another daft endeavour such as this any time soon is next to nil. However, beware - they did it once and got away with it, so they may try again. It would seem that for them, a contract means very little, and if you wanted to take them to court you'd be taking the government to court. If you've lived in the Gulf any amount of time you can guess how that would turn out.

[Iamherebecause]

Those who were transferred to Fujairah are not allowed to transfer back to Al Ain. But many have resigned anyway.

The ridiculous HCT foundation programme has apparently been abandoned, and the UGRU teachers who were transferred are working on regular HCT courses.

Meanwhile the Al Ain based UGRU teachers whose contracts expire in 2011 are being given new 3 year contracts - last May/June they were told that it was unlikely their contracts would be renewed at all, and this was used as an argument to try and persuade them to request transfer to HCT.

This was an experiment which failed, not before it messed up the lives of the teachers concerned. Yet the Provost of UAEU remains in post. UGRU is not the only aspect of UAEU which he is messing up - but it's the only part which is directly relevant to users of this board. UAEU is also not the only institution he's messed up: see Hume fired from University of NSW
www.smh.com.au/articles/2004/04/09/1081326929792.html?from=storyrhs

[robinbanks]

it's nice to hear the the long suffering of the UGRU people have been solved despite all the back-stabbing,cut throaters swimming aropund such as the man who likes to dance to the management's tune-is 'e?oh yes he is.The "Raza"is not as sharp as he thinks he is.A lot of the teachers probably feel they should have left a while ago especially those with kids.There's really a lot of duff schools in the Garden city-Not a lot of people know that.

[Matthias]

If a nation can oust Ben Ali then surely a dept. can MOD EDIT.

Fret not. He's not bright enough. He stops at Tsun-ami.

[alien-resurrection]

and the result is, whah-lah!! MOD EDITYou have got to hand it to the guy - he created something that will punish UAEU and its management for a long time to come.

From what I ve heard, he gave management ample warning.

They now have only themselves to blame.

[Agnes of Oman]

I'm so impressed - the MOD EDIT website is exactly what is needed to "out" those at UAEU who engage in unprofessional, unethical and illegal activities. My hat goes off to the gentleman who has chosen to defy pressure to stifle the truth, and who has provided a voice for those at UAEU who have none.

[veiledsentiments]

You must be easily impressed. Anyone with a beef can start a blog or website like this and I find many of them rather whiny myself... especially the ones where they make up infantile nicknames for the management and use the site to slander fellow teachers that they may not like. I find this UAE site very confusing and poorly set up, but they are probably confined by the host. I am always suspicious of anyone who nominates themselves "The official site." It seems that their other job is to pass on the usual Gulf "urban legends" like the current "bordello" rumor post.

It is not as though people hadn't been venting here and every other ESL/EFL employment website that allows comments. Anyone who cares to know can find out the problems of the last year easily enough.

Personally I doubt that these sites do much to change anything, nor to keep many teachers away. There are still plenty of teachers who want to try the Middle East and are drawn by the salary and benefit package that pales what they have worked for elsewhere.

I'd say UAEU is still a better choice than ADW.

VS

[Agnes of Oman]

I was impressed with the extent to which the site attempts to expose not only the way UAEU treats employees, but also their (perhaps) questionable academic integrity.

Having said that, the website's author does himself and the site no favours by writing nasty things about anyone he doesn't like. If the author stuck to facts and took a more professional attitude about the content, the website might reach more people and do the good it proposes to want to do.

I suppose the lack of freedom of speech within the UAEU environment, and the Gulf in general, leads some people to vent everything when they have the opportunity. A number of those in charge at UAEU have done some pretty awful things they will never be held accountable for. Nor will they be affected by the resulting mess they've created. Those who are affected feel frustration, resentment and anger at the situation in which they find themselves, especially as they cannot rely on the University to deal with their grievances fairly and legally.

Perhaps those of us who have been in the Gulf for a long time have come to expect unfair and even illegal treatment by our employers. If we escape it we might wonder why those who are treated badly whine and carry on as they do - weren't they aware that that's the gamble you take when you work in the Gulf? I recall hearing lots of stories of teachers in S Korea having bad experiences with their employers, i.e., not being paid, made to work more hours than they were contracted to work, etc but I didn't experience any of that and left Korea with some very nice memories.

I now understand, however, how those teachers burned in S Korea felt. What makes the situation with UAEU so extremely frustrating is that there is no legal recourse, or at least none I'm aware of. While in Shanghai two colleagues and I had contractual problems but were able to take our Chinese employers to court as it was a private company (we won), but that is not an option with UAEU as it is a government uni and wasta would surely prevail.

So, while I remain impressed by the website's efforts to look beyond simply complaining about how UAEU mistreats employees, the author has work to do in order to maximize the site's usefulness.

[republocrat]

That's right - Failed Sentiments doesn't like websites that reveal the truth, as she doesn't appreciate the competition! Not that she knows much, anyway...

Actually I'm all in favour of such sites. Now we mere teachers have the opportunity to reveal the grim truth that lurks behind the shiny lies of the Sheikhs and their hired Western apologists and bullshitters.

More power to the people ... and the internet!!

[veiledsentiments]

Ah... another of those who thinks that they are clever by making up infantile names. The only difference between those websites and this website is that here people aren't allowed to use real names. It is not as though the problems going on at UAEU have not been discussed here. Same with the problems at HCT and many other employers.

It is just that here you are expected to act a bit more professional.

VS