Job Discussion Forums

[public enemy]

Is it worth the paper it isn't written on?

[public enemy]

It is through a good University in the U.K if that make any difference.

[veiledsentiments]

As long as you teach at university level under the Ministry of Higher Education, it will be recognized. If you want to teach in the schools under the Ministry of Education, it will not.



VS

[public enemy]

Thanks VS

I would have thought the vast majority of ESL jobs are at University level though no? Also, I think I read somewhere that experience is only counted after the completion of M.A and not before?

[public enemy]

Also, I take it KSA operates along the same lines?

[johnslat]

Dear public enemy,

Not quite - in Saudi very, very few places (if any) will recognize an MA earned by distance learning. But this:

"I read somewhere that experience is only counted after the completion of M.A and not before?"

is true in Saudi.

Regards,
John

[veiledsentiments]

[123Loto]

[veiledsentiments]

[Ignatius Reilly]

An interesting point of semantics. A Briton, such as I, would never refer to a university as a 'school' but C/WOULD refer to it as a 'college'. This perhaps leads some of my countrymen to regard HCT as some kind of university when it is not. It is a rather pretentious community college and has student levels to prove it. 'School' is only a term I would use to refer to something such as a 'school of education' when not referring to an institute providing primary or secondary education. A small difference but worth knowing.
The UAE seemed very concerned about the whole business of authentication a few years ago but it seemed a wholly unfair process. For me the process was pathetically easy. A quick trip to the British Council and an outlay of 50 dirhams for a worthless stamp, followed by a trip to the British Embassy and a two day wait and a fee of 85 dirhams got me that stamp. Then to the UAE Ministry of Foreign Affairs and a further fee of 150 dirhams and a one day wait got me the final stamp I required. The whole process took about four days and a few weeks later I received a shiny certificate from the Ministry of Higher Education and Science to say my degrees were bona fide. At no point do I believe my degrees were properly authenticated.
My American colleagues seemed to have to go through a much more rigorous and somewhat tortuous process of employing a notary from the state in which they attended 'school' in order to get the required stamps/papers etc and then have everything posted to Washington for U.S. Foreign Office approval before getting everything posted back to the Emirates for UAE F.O. approval. This was made more difficult for those who were born and raised, for example, in Maryland, but attended university in California and had no family or close friends in that state to help them with the process. It seemed to take them months and cost considerably more for them than for me.
As for distance degrees, there appeared to be a blanket refusal to accept them, which considering how good some distance degrees are and from highly respectable universities, seemed iniquitous.

[It's Scary!]

Quite, and, as a point in nomenclature, you doen't seem like the twit that got into a snit a few years back when it was pointed out the the U.S. doesn't have a "Foreign Office", but a Secretary of State.

I fell afoul 'twixt British and American terms when there was a misunderstanding between myself and a Scottish genius in foreign relations when he referred to a "lesson" and I used the word "period". Apparently, to people from the U.K., "lesson" refers to a defined period of time and lesson, in the book I was using, meant a define set of pages. When it took me three "periods" to finish the "lesson", he was enraged!

Wadda a yerk!

[veiledsentiments]

[Ignatius Reilly]

I stand corrected and am certainly not in a 'snit' about it! It is a curious feeling to have ones country's titles referred to by an understandable but erroneous name. I bristle almost imperceptibly but bristle nonetheless when I hear reference to Britain's 'Finance Minister' instead of 'Chancellor of the Exchequer'. How can we have a 'Finance Minister' when we have no money? We can and do have a beautiful, if empty, exchequer! I have been known to near swoon at the mention by Europeans of a British 'Ministry of the Interior', a term I associate with jackboots or the Stasi. We have a lovely, cuddly, 'Home Office', to mishandle our affairs in Britain.

[johnslat]

Dear Mr. Reilly,

I see your homeland is beset by a host of difficulties. But never fear - Fortuna's wheel will spin again. In the meantime, keep reading Bo�thius. Philosophy does, indeed, have many consolations.

Regards,
John

[Badar Bin Bada Boom]

The term "school" is often used in the U.S. informally to refer to postgraduate education including the Ph.D. level. That's because we often find it pompous to indicate "I'm studying for a doctorate" or "I'm studying for my master's" unless the information is useful or required.

So "I'm going back to school after working for a few years" could mean anything from completing a high-school diploma to the PhD or even MD. (By the way, professional degree programs such as medical doctor and law require a bachelor's degree first. We find it strange and slightly unsettling that somebody could be a "medical student" at age 18! That does not mean, however, that we look down on European and British physicians.)

As for undergraduate college and hospitals, we use generic grammar in opposite ways. Thus,

UK: "I'm going to university next year."
US: "I'm going to college in the fall." "I go to college in Boston."
US: "He lives near the university [or college] so he doesn't need transport."
(Same as Britain in this case)

UK: "She was taken to hospital with a concussion."
US: "She was taken to a (the) hospital with a concussion."

As VS mentions, "college" and "university" are almost interchangeable. Thus, Boston College and Boston University are two separate, major research universities offering the PhD.

We never refer to a secondary school as a "college," however. That can cause some confusion between opposite sides of the Atlantic, with continental Europeans as well as with Brits.[/i]