High(er education) standards

The following article was published this week in BusinessWeek:

John Sexton’s Global Campus Plans for NYU

While plenty of this piece is devoted to relating New York University’s rags-to-riches story over the past few decades, much of it focusses on the recent expansion in the form of an Abu Dhabi branch, set to officially open its doors in Fall 2010.

If you don’t relish reading through the entire article, here are a few highlights:

Along with paying all costs associated with the university, Abu Dhabi, part of the United Arab Emirates, will reimburse NYU for the cost of replacing NYU faculty who relocate to the Middle East. Abu Dhabi has also made a $50 million unrestricted gift to NYU. Sexton describes it as a “gesture” rather than part of the agreement.

Some faculty are concerned that the school’s growing dependence on oil money will affect academic freedom, says Andrew Ross, an NYU professor of social and cultural analysis. The flashpoints are Abu Dhabi’s lack of diplomatic relations with Israel, its intolerance of homosexuality, and its treatment of migrant labor, says Ross, president of NYU’s chapter of the American Association of University Professors. Sexton says Israeli professors will be able to travel to the campus, as well as gay students and teachers, and NYU is monitoring labor practices.

NYU will raise its standards in Abu Dhabi, not diminish them, Sexton says. NYU Abu Dhabi will be so choosy that students accepted there will be “clearly admissible to any college or university in the world,” and its faculty will include Nobel and Pulitzer prize winners, he says. “We are very confident we can sustain the quality, not just for this year or the next five years but literally for the generations,” Sexton says.

I hate to say it, but I smell something unpleasant here.  When I read words like “paying all costs associated with the university” and “$50 million unrestricted gift,” I have a difficult time really believing that “NYU Abu Dhabi will be so choosy” or that academic (as well as personal and political) freedom won’t be compromised when some wasta-wielding student complains about not receiving an admission offer, being offended by the course material, or receiving a grade lower than he was expecting.

You see, academic freedom is compromised here in the desert — for all sorts of reasons, but mostly due to a heavy dose of close-mindedness (Hey, I’ve had students tell me that Hitler was a great guy.  Really.) and an even heavier dose of getting what one wants via money and connections (along the lines of ‘fail me and I’ll see that you lose your job’).

It’ll be a great day if NYU Abu Dhabi can say that it’s 100% immune to the problems plaguing virtually every other higher education institution here, and that its standards haven’t been compromised, but right now I keep thinking that all that lovely money isn’t coming cheap.

References:

Hechinger, J. (27 May 2010). John Sexton’s global campus plans for NYU.  BusinessWeek. Retrieved (29 May 2010) from: http://www.businessweek.com/magazine/content/10_23/b4181072514193.htm

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Straight from the horse’s mouth

This week, The Chronicle of Higher Education published a lengthy piece on UAEU and its provost Wyatt Hume:

Money proves elusive and progress difficult at United Arab Emirates U.

This seems to be one of the first articles in The Chronicle that is entirely devoted to the goings-on at a local university (as opposed to a branch campus of a US institution), so I encourage you to read it.

Then have a look at the comments (all 35 of them, as of today).  In a land where secrecy agreements prevail, academic freedom is somewhat less than free, and faculty are fearful of speaking out, it’s refreshing to see such candor.

References:

Mills, A. 23 May 2010. Money proves elusive and progress difficult at United Arab Emirates U.  The Chronicle of Higher Education.  Retrieved (26 May 2010) from: http://chronicle.com/article/Money-Proves-Elusiveand/65658/key=SGt1cFRsNSFNZXA3cndBKHdVPiF9Jkp8PnNFNi4aZV5d

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English 001, anyone?

No, that wasn’t a typo, but a response to today’s headline (courtesy of The National):

Students entering university still stuck on remedial treadmill

(as if this is news to anyone involved in education over here)

What it IS, is yet another article in the paper’s education section talking to us about how poorly prepared students are for university curricula,  how the “goverment efforts [what efforts?] to end the need for remedial English and maths courses…have had a minimal effect so far” (Lewis, 2010), and how more school reforms are needed because students still can’t write a sentence or add simple fractions after 12 years of school (and no, that is not an exaggeration of the facts).

Let me tell you what I think is needed.

Hire real teachers and give them two things:  autonomy and protection.  Trust them to teach what needs to be taught without oodles of oversight from the M of Ed (who evidently isn’t doing such a hot job of overseeing).  Then shield them from irate parents and students who are willing to go on a mission to deport the poor teacher if Johnny doesn’t get the grade he thinks he deserves (and believe me, in most cases, he’ll always think he deserves an A).  Assess faculty on the basis of how well they teach, not how many students like them, and not how many students pass.

Because here in the desert, it’s not unusual for F to stand for ‘Fired’.

References:

Lewis, K. 25 May 2010.  Students entering university still stuck on remedial treadmill.  The National.  Retrieved (25 May 2010) from http://www.thenational.ae/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20100525/NATIONAL/705249818/1019

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Why (Ms.) Mohamed can’t read

I saw a shocking story in yesterday’s The National about the substandard learning experience of high school students:

RAK students grateful for second chance

Note, in particular, the following statements from one of the young women interviewed:

“I will tell you about English class,” Ms Mohamed said. “I still laugh about it. They would give us 12 paragraphs and tell us ‘You will have an exam with three, so memorise them’. So I memorised 12 paragraphs and understood nothing.

“We told our teacher, ‘We don’t understand’. She said, ‘It’s usual not to understand’.”

I just don’t know what to say about this.

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Number, please

Some recent postings on the teaching forums here in the ether prompted me to have a closer look at admissions requirements for a few local universities, specifically the English proficiency requirements.  Not being an English teacher, I’ve heard multiple references to the TOEFL (American standard) and IELTS (British standard) during my tenure here (and, perhaps more revealing, I’ve actually seen the proficiency levels first hand).  But the numbers themselves remained little more than Applestats (the statistic, which, without context, is about as meaningless as saying ‘apple’).  Until now.

The first task was to take a quick look at the minimum TOEFL iBT (internet-based test, as opposed to the paper test which is on a completely different scale) requirements for admission to the universities on my links list.  Here are the results:

Institution	TOEFL iBT Raw Score
Abu Dhabi University	61
Al Hosn University	61
American University of Dubai	79-80
American University of RAK	61
American University of Sharjah	71
Higher Colleges of Technology	80
Khalifa University (KUSTAR)**	79
Mich. State University, Dubai	79
NYU Abu Dhabi	no min.
Paris Sorbonne Abu Dhabi	n/a (French curriculum)
Petroleum Institute	61 (79 for non-Emiratis)
UAE University	75
Zayed University	61

**KUSTAR raised its minimum requirements from 61 on the TOEFL iBT and 5.0 on the IELTS quite recently. A 12 May 2010 Google cached page contains the lower numbers.

Right. This is, in fact, about as interesting as writing in ‘apple’, ‘orange’, and ‘kumquat’ in some of the cells.  So let’s have a look at the context, courtesy of the Educational Testing Service’s Test and Score Data Summary for 2009 (ETS, 2009).

The TOEFL iBT comprises four sections (reading, listening, speaking, and writing) with a maximum score of 30 points each, so the maximum score for the entire iBT is 120.  This in itself adds a little more meaning to ’61’, but we can dig even deeper, as the ETS offers mean scale scores by native language (note that the mean for the English native speaker category is 88):

Low (Bambara)	High (Dutch)	Arabic
49	101	70

and by country:

Low (Mali)	High (Netherlands)	UAE
57	101	64

To be fair, we can also examine the mean scores in the mideast context only:

Low (Qatar)	High (Lebanon)	UAE
61	81	64

(Note that the highest mideast mean is actually 94.  See if you can guess which country claims it.)

And finally, to put all these numbers in perspective, here are the percentile ranks for TOEFL iBT scores (undergraduate-level students):

Total Scale Score	Percentile Rank
120	100
116	99
112	96
108	92
104	86
100	80
96	74
92	68
88	62
84	55
80	49
76	43
72	37
68	32
64	27
60	22
56	18
52	15
48	11
44	9
40	6
36	4

Now we’re cooking with gas (instead of apples).  And what we see is that the majority of UAE tertiary institutions are admitting freshman with English proficiency scores in the 23-26 percentile rank (considering the population of all TOEFL iBT test takers).

Still, this isn’t quite enough context.  To really understand what these numbers mean, we need to ask what the minimum TOEFL requirements are not just here in the UAE, but at institutions in English-speaking countries.  The ETS conveniently provides us with this information for several such undergraduate programs:

Institution	Minimum TOEFL iBT Score
Arizona State	61 (pre-professional programs), 79 (professional programs)
Austin Community College	71
Boston University	84-91, depending on college
Calvin College	80
Carson-Newman College	79
Central Queensland University	79
Columbia International University	80
Columbus State Community College	54-55
Grand Valley State University	80
Lehigh University	85
North Carolina State University	79
Ohio State University	71
Savannah College of Art & Design	85
SUNY – Albany	79
Syracuse University	80
University of Arkansas	80
University of Denver	70
University of Pittsburgh	80
University of Toronto	100
University of Virginia	90
University of Washington	70
University of Western Australia	90
University of Wisconsin	80
Wheaton College (Mass.)	90

This is, admittedly, a lot to digest in one sitting.  But at least all the numbers are in one place.

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AUS is coming to town

According to today’s The National, the American University of Sharjah has plans to launch a campus in Abu Dhabi next year.  This seems like pretty big news, considering the reputation of AUS.

The American-curriculum  uni will be offering Abu Dhabi based foundation programmes as well as vocational training and postgraduate courses.

References:

Swan, M. (21 May 2010). American University to set up in capital.  The National.  Retreived (21 May 2010) from http://www.thenational.ae/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20100520/NATIONAL/705199891/1019

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I love science, but there’s got to be something more…

It’s no secret that the Abu Dhabi 2030 plan includes a heavy push to develop a UAE national workforce in the engineering and technology sectors, and not a week goes by without seeing an article in one of the newspapers like the one in today’s National:

Technology -oriented schools to grow enrolment

True, the tech-savviness of a nation has a substantial role to play in its global competitiveness (see my earlier post), but every so often I want to hear about someone valuing a non-technical degree.  Today I got my wish.

Not one, but two (two!) articles have appeared in The National this week highlighting academic curricula that prepare students for careers in fields that don’t include the word ‘engineering’:

On 17 May, the Sorbonne was reported to be offering master’s programmes in museum studies and archive studies here in Abu Dhabi, as well as an upcoming graduate programme in the performing arts. (Unfortunately, the Sorbonne should probably be offering a degree in web design, or at least hire someone competent, as its site is by far the least user-friendly on the local academic scene.)  But web snafus aside, it’s refreshing to see this non-technical (and highly relevant, given the Saadiyat Island Cultural District Master Plan) academic opportunity here in Abu Dhabi.

The second piece, in today’s The National, reports on the 22 students in Zayed University’s Diplomatic Academy (rather unfindable on the Zayed U site, but one can read about it, and other ZU intitiatives, here).  Again, I find it heartening — particularly when I read words like “wide range of skills” and “broad knowledge base.”

Amid my growing concerns about higher education being turned into little more than a trade school, these words, if they’re to be taken seriously, are music to an academic’s ears.

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Pay freezes and job losses revisited

The comments have been rolling on The National’s May 12 story about UAE universities cutting back on salaries and allowances.  Have a look at them here.

What I find particularly interesting in some of the commentary is the reference to regular school allowances of 80,000 Dhs and ‘additional fee’ allowances of 20,000 Dhs.  That comes to an annual benefit of about USD 28,000 that is only available to employees with children.

While the exorbitant school fees here in Abu Dhabi (sometimes nearly 50,000 Dhs per child) and other family-related expenses put expats with dependents in an understandably difficult situation, I have to question the fairness of compensation schemes:  Should employees with dependents automatically earn more than single employees, or should they be expected to pay for some of their family expenses out-of-pocket?  Is it fair to supply an employee with a non-working spouse and children triple the number of annual business-class tickets home while limiting the airfare allowance to one ticket in cases where a spouse works and there are no children?  I myself have never heard of a job, in any sector, that pays a higher salary to employees on the basis of marital or parental status.

Comments welcome.

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Rich country, poor university

Today’s National reports the following:

Pay frozen and job losses loom as UAE universities feel the pinch

I am not an economist, but there seems to be something truly wrong with this news. I could go on about GDPs, GNPs, per capita income and so forth, but I won’t.  I’ll just ask why a country that appears to be so damned wealthy is having a hard time supporting its federal educational institutions.

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Money money money

Today’s post is brought to you by the Sign of the Dollar.  Or the Dirham.  Or whatever native currency you feel comfortable with.

If you spend a little time looking around the net, you’ll find a few forums where expat hires ask for something like a reality check on a salary package (indeed, one post I dug up was titled something like *Need a reality check on a salary offer*).  And why not?  It’s easy enough to figure out what the cost of living is halfway around the world, but if you’re like me you probably want to know where your offer falls in the pecking order.  So here we go.  (I’ve updated these with new information found through 5 June, and will continue to do so as I find references to salary packages on the forums.)

Just yesterday, a new member of Dave’s ESL Cafe asked for comments on his/her 10,000 AED/month salary at the International School of Creative Sciences (I myself have not yet heard of that one).  The poster has a PGCE (Brit-speak for post-graduate certificate in education).  Click here for the comments.

Got that?  ’10K is low.’  ‘Don’t settle for less than 15K plus the usual benefits.’  ’10K is taking the piss.’

Ok, so the ISCS maybe needs to get a little more creative with its salary packages.

Let’s get back to the ‘plus the usual benefits’ phrase for just a minute.  Here in the UAE, that translates as ‘plus FREE housing, round-trip tickets to the home country for the employee and family, health insurance for the whole family, schooling allowances for children (usually capped at a certain amount), and perhaps a relocation allowance.’  This is, in fact, a fairly standard package.  And that 15K plus the usual benefits is what the crowd over at Dave’s is claiming to be the norm…a crowd with master’s degrees.

Here are a few corroborating quotes (all figures are in UAE dirhams):

For KUSTAR (Sharjah campus EFL lecturers):

Basic package is 15,000 + housing which for a family is about 9,000 per month, education allowance of 80K (40K max per child) and tickets home.  (another poster mentions that this is the same package offered at the high school level at IAT).

For HCT (Dubai non-teaching jobs):

18,715 AED per month plus standard accomodation, insurance, flights home, vacation, 30,000 AED relocation, etc.

For HCT (various locations, ESL instructors):

11,000 AED per month and SHARED accomodation. [my emphasis]

For IAT (Abu Dhabi, ESL instructors [I assume]):

12,000 to 15,000 basic with 11,800 housing…just shy of 25,000 a month.

For Zayed University (Asst. Professor, and take note that Zayed provides housing and the usual other benefits):

…a monthly salary of 17000…

For HCT (various locations, ESL instructors [I assume]):

Have hear [sic] of three folks starting at over 18,000 AED a month with zero experience at the tertiary level…

For KUSTAR (Abu Dhabi, Asst. Prof, Physics):

basic:  14K/month
other allowances:  20/month
kids education: up to 54 k/ year
annual tickets
(No housing proved [sic] by the univ. of course)

For KUSTAR (Sharjah, Asst. Prof, Engineering):

15.5k basic salary
10.5k allowance
plus medical and flights benefits

For The Petroleum Institute (ESL teachers with MAs – note the date):

In 2002, PI salaries for EFL people were pretty much Dh 15,000 across the board, with a furniture allowance of Dh. 44,000.

For Zayed University (ESL teachers with MAs):

I’d say that you should be looking at 13-17,000 Dhs (US$3500-4500) depending on whether your experience is pre or post MA and how closely your experience matches their program. The package will also include housing, a nice furniture allowance, flights, gratuity, medical… the usual. Housing is normally a two-bedroom flat is a new or nearly new building. You will have to search long and hard here to find any teachers complaining here about the conditions.

And Bardsley (2009) reports the following in The National’s story about encouraging Emiratis to become academics:

Typically an assistant professor at a government university earns about Dh25,000 (US$6,800) a month, while a full professor may earn more than double this.

Interesting reading, don’t you think?

References:

Various authors.  Various dates.  Dave’s ESL Café (United Arab Emirates forum).  Retrieved (13 May 2010) from http://forums.eslcafe.com/job/viewforum.php?f=30.

Bardsley, D. 22 Dec 2009. Emiratis encouraged to become Academics.  The National. Retrieved (12 May 2009) from http://www.thenational.ae/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20091223/NATIONAL/712229874/1010/rss</p&gt;

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