Teacher Quality, Gender and Nationality in the UAE: A Crisis for Boys (original) (raw)
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School Boys’ Academic Underachievement in the UAE
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What takes place in the classroom largely determines the extent to which the desired learning outcomes are attained. The systematic observation, analysis, and understanding of classroom aims and events then become fundamental to insightful educational research such as the male learners' academic underachievement. For a researcher to understand communication in a classroom, considering classroom processes and learning outcomes as reliable means of measuring classroom conversation and interaction is required. A commonly used strategy is conversation analysis that can shed light on how teacher talk reflects the act of teaching, how teachers and students organize their talk, and what kind of interaction brings about various affordances for language learning. Employing such a method allows researchers to gain a profound understanding of the connection between relative 'dialogicality' of lessons and student achievement, as well as the extent to which novel instructional policies have adapted or entirely altered classroom interactional patterns. Teaching English as a second/foreign language for more than a decade to high school boys and girls has given me numerous eye-witness accounts to dwell upon the phenomenon of gender gap in academic performance, how teachers perceive male learners' attitude, and whether such an attitude has an impact on the teaching practices. A sociocultural stance is seen to be more convenient in addressing the early mentioned phenomenon as classroom conversations are affected by social factors that extend beyond language classrooms including curriculum, educational policy, socioeconomic and ethnic backgrounds, and gender norms. Questions to Ask What factors contribute to the current gender gap in education between school boys and girls in the UAE? How do teachers perceive boys' attitudes to learning? What is the impact of the
International Journal of Recent Scientific Research, 2017
The purpose of this study was to investigate the perceptions on teaching profession and on the changing role of school teachers in the United Arab Emirates (UAE) and to examine how this perception affects the teaching profession. To achieve this aim, one main question was inspected: Does the current perceptions of students, teachers and school leaders on teachers in the selected eight schools from Dubai and Sharjah affect the value of teaching profession? Dramatic changes on teacher's role over the last decades have challenged teachers' professional identities and carried the question of what it means to be a teacher in recent times. To articulate this change, some significant theories have been consulted in this study, such as professional identity, the role theory, the changing nature of the teacher's role, educational reforms and privatization of education. The study devises three groups of participants comprising 200 teachers, 262 students and 10 experienced educators from eight private and public schools. Multiple instruments were utilized in a mixed methods research to collect data. The study finds that teachers notice a big shift about how they are valued. The results showed that teacher satisfaction is most notably obtained by effectively changing students' attitudes in a positive way. The results also indicated that most students do not consider teaching as a future career despite their deep respect for their teachers. In addition, the results indicate that privatisation is key for the shift in the way teachers are valued. 'delegated' the responsibility of education to the Abu Dhabi Educational Council, ADEC in Abu Dahbi and the Knowledge and Human Development Authority, KHDA in Dubai (Ibrahim, Al-Kaabi & El-Zaatari, 2013). Since then, both authorities have implemented many initiatives to drive their agenda of change. However, many serious challenges still stand against the goal of building a modern educational system. One of the key difficulties was that the majority of teachers in the UAE are not citizens of the country (Ridge, 2006). Figures reveal that over 80% present of the male teachers in UAE schools are expatriate teachers (MoE, 2008). The second obstacle was the consistent inadequate performance and outcomes of the education system in the UAE (KHDA Annual Report, 2013). Furthermore, results have indicated the poor grades of UAE students in international exams, such as, TIMSS and PIZA (OECD, 2015).
Challenges faced by Emirati Novice Teachers
The first years of teaching are well known as being the most challenging of new graduates' careers, corresponding to the highest attrition rates. Numbers of novice teachers leaving the profession during the first three years are universally high. The challenges faced by novice teachers vary from struggling with classroom management issues to coping with lesson planning, to name just two. In Abu Dhabi, the capital city of the United Arab Emirates, novice Emirati teachers face additional dimensions to these challenges, in that they are joining public schools which are undergoing substantial educational reform. They are also in the minority as Emirati English medium teachers, working among mainly Western teaching staff. We interviewed a group of Emirati primary school teachers during their first year of teaching. It was found that they had faced multiple challenges, some of which are universal among novice teachers, such as managing student behavior and learning to cope with their new workload. However, they also faced additional unique challenges, such as navigating inter-cultural relationships with colleagues, and balancing their new working lives with their demanding home lives.
The Hidden Gender Gap in Education in the UAE
An increasing number of global comparison studies rank countries on everything from carbon footprint to educational performance to gender equality. In the United Arab Emirates (UAE), a focus on improving competitiveness has coupled with growing attention to gender issues to ensure that two reports published annually by the World Economic Forum (WEF) have received significant attention. While useful in many respects, global comparisons such as the WEF’s Global Competitiveness Index (GCI) and the Global Gender Gap Index (GGGI) fail to capture a growing gender gap in education that is adversely affecting males in the UAE. This brief will examine current trends in gender and education in the UAE, as well as possible explanations for the male gender gap. It will outline why a gender gap which adversely affects males should be of concern to policy makers in the UAE and the region at large, highlighting some of the problems surrounding the use of global comparison reports. The brief concludes with recommendations on how to address the situation.
PROSPECTS, 2013
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