The Good

So, this content, as you can see, is pretty old.  I worked with the original blogger for some time and he has now handed the reins on to me so that I can update the information which is somewhat outdated.  

If you want to read just the original 2013 posts, read the black text only. If you want to read the 2016 commentary on the 2013 texts, you should read the whole thing, as I comment on the points the OB made. Enjoy.

First of all, some disclaimers and fair warnings. The views are my own but the facts are as up-to-date as I can make them.  This guide is designed to inform, not persuade or dissuade you, and takes no responsibility for changes or differences in information from region to region.

The Good       

So let’s break down, then, reasons why should take the job.       

You can’t beat the money

If you are considering a teaching job in the emirates or Gulf in general, you can’t beat the ADEC salary package.  In fact, now that the West has begun to sort itself out, despite adverse conditions, you probably can.  I’ll go into reasons for this as I go along.  But there is one thing you still can’t beat: the lifestyle.  Whether you’re prepared to go through what it takes to get that lifestyle is another matter.  Abu Dhabi has deep pockets; their checks clear on time.  On at least three occasions, while I was there, they didn’t. Your housing allowance can be used to find a suitable (even luxurious) apartment.  Not any more. This began to be phased out in 2015 and by 2016 was gone altogether for EMTs, with some very few exceptions.  I myself lived in a luxury accommodation for two years in Abu Dhabi and sincerely miss that apartment.  Your salary is tax free, (kind of, now.  See endnote of this section.) as promised, but when you consider the lack of rent, it’s almost all pocket cash, minus whatever debts you may have back home.  You might be paid $52,000 a year in base salary, but your purchasing power, when you consider your tax free living and your free rent, easily soars into the equivalent of six figures.  This is technically true, though with food costs (as well as other things) skyrocketing in Abu Dhabi, the benefits of the relatively high salary are somewhat negated. In the final weeks of 2013 I saw, in the space of 2 weeks, many items of non-luxury foods triple in price. This happened again in 2014, 15 and 16. In the end, some things which only weeks before had been part of my staple diet were relegated to luxury items. Don’t even get me started on Collard Greens!

Everything, with the exception of junk foods, has increased dramatically in price since I arrived in 2012.  One could argue that this is the case for the entire world, but it is marked in Abu Dhabi and you really do notice it when you add everything up at the end of the month.

You can, on this salary, have it all – enjoying lovely weekends on the beach, running to and fro between Abu Dhabi and Dubai, partying (or staying in) as much as you like with nary a financial worry ahead of you.   There is nothing like not having to worry about money – I, for one, truly miss that feeling of not having to calculate whether I can go on that meal out or buy those shoes I really like. But here’s the thing: The ‘me’ I am in the West is infinitely more settled and worry-free than the ‘me’ I was in Abu Dhabi.  

Only monumental stupidity – and that does on occasion happen – puts you into debt.  There are some true idiots who have come along and found a way to squander this opportunity, forgetting that math applies to all people regardless of paycheck.  While mammoth loans are still available at some banks, they are now really difficult to get hold of. This is due, no doubt, to the number of ‘runners’ which stung the banks for cars, boats, planes, and dubious other essential items. Ultimately, it has become cheaper for banks to not give the loans in the first place than chase someone abroad.

ADEC’s salary is comparable with the country’s university positions.  It also beats the hell out of the private schools.  Not now.  Salaries with ADEC have largely been frozen in recent years.  The salary you join ADEC with is the salary you’ll leave ADEC with.  There is no pay-rise and not much room for promotion, apart from some occasional exceptions. 

You won’t find a private school in the Gulf offering a similar salary – if anything, since the UAE’s started to become more and more developed, salaries have gone down as teachers are now becoming more the rule rather than the exception. Increasingly, private schools are beginning to offer comparable salaries and, arguably, better deals and in terms of conditions. It is, however, correct that this is still generally the case, but very well-paid private school posts can be found.

This isn’t Ghaddafi’s Libya, and you won’t have problems with your salary or housing allowance. What they promise you, you’ll get.  Your bonus is also a legal right that is regularly honored, even if you are terminated. In these cash-strapped times, even this is now being ‘interpreted’ in different ways and, because of the way laws and decrees work, could easily be phased out at a moment’s notice and even backdated.  Some of my colleagues and friends of colleagues who left – and weren’t fired – in 2014-2016 had a pro-rated amount deducted from their EOS gratuity for sick days and/or unexplained absences, despite some of the pay having been deducted in monthly salaries. The argument was that they hadn’t ‘completed’ the agreed service because they hadn’t worked every day.  Some of these absenses were clocking in/out errors, but there was little or no chance of arguing the case by that time, as everyone had left the school/country on their break.  Their unfailing response was to suck it up and move on.  

While you can’t pocket your housing allowance (the money is transferred between your landlord and ADEC directly), you can remember that you have no incentive not to go for the absolute best housing you find.  As stated, this is no longer an option for the vast majority.  ADEC provides housing now for EMTs.  There are, as mentioned, some exceptions, but these are rare.

Endnote: While this is still technically true, in recent years, as low oil prices have bitten and funds have been bled dry by a largely feckless local workforce, the first cuts have been to any benefits expats receive.  And this will only continue.  In my final year I saw separate expat tax being added to all utility bills – gas, electric and water – as well as the introduction of a tax on company-provided apartments which was BACKDATED to the beginning of the year.  Some people got away with this as their apartment was in ADEC’s name and so ADEC had to pick up the tab.  But many didn’t and, as a result, found they had a hefty(ish) unexpected bill.  And this is only going to get worse, as the coffers truly run dry.

You’re really not working that much

Working hours are generally light.  In Cycle 3, we worked from around 7 until 2.  At 2, when the bell rang, we were all gone like bats out of hell.  Again, this is no longer true, although I understand that there is variation from school to school.  ADEC has pushed the policy of school being 9 lessons of 45 minutes a day, a gruelling schedule for students and teachers alike, especially considering the students are constantly trapped in the same room each lesson. The school day (for boys) started at 7.05 and ends at 3.35 every day, at least in my school. I understand this varied a little according to the Principal’s whims.  There were often after-school meetings which seldom ran for less than an hour.  It is notable that the contributor in the comments section mentioned that girls’ schools often left later than boys’ schools.  I’m my experience, they started an hour later too, and had a lot more time off during summer months. For a majority of my time in Abu Dhabi, our sister school started an hour after us and finished 30 minutes before. 

We were not required to put in weekends for special events or sponsor anything after school.  Increasingly, If fact, we were often discouraged from doing so.  Most grading (or marking, as is the common parlance here) is done in school, though you might take some stuff home.  Administrators do not stay late themselves and won’t expect you to either; the attitude is “Your time is your time” and nobody wants to interfere with your out of work hours.
In Cycle 3, the light hours are cut even further by the exam seasons.  Despite the school calendar, every trimester (and the two semesters of 2009-10) ends earlier than is officially sanctioned.  ADEC and the government have tried, futilely, to change this, but have gotten nowhere.  (See: http://www.thenational.ae/news/uae-news/education/parents-extend-four-day-uae-school-holiday-to-up-to-2-weeks and http://www.thenational.ae/news/uae-news/empty-desks-as-parents-extend-eid-for-children) They’ve barely lengthened the school day by an hour (a massive controversy in 2009).

At the end of each trimester, Cycle 3 has two weeks of exams.  Prior to that, there’s often one or two weeks of unofficial non-teaching time, where students filter in and out but nobody is expected to get much done.  Classes might still be given, but no teaching and learning is required during those times as your administration has probably already asked you to submit the marks.

So while in between each trimester you get a 2 to 3 week long out of school break, in Cycle 3 you get another 2 weeks of exams with another week of unofficial non-teaching time.  That adds up to nearly six weeks of non-teaching time per trimester, which is just as ridiculous as it sounds.  In exam season, you have permanent half days and start your school day late – generally, you work from 8 until 11 or 12.  While you do have to mark evenings for the English assessments at a central location, these rarely take more than two nights to complete.

KG is even more ridiculous.  There, teachers often work from 7 until 11 or 12 for the entire year.  Paradise found if that’s your thing.  Only in Cycle 1, where the New School Model is in full swing, do you approach a “normal” day by Western standards – often from 7 until 2 with some kind of meeting after, which vary from place to place and school to school.

For a place next to Saudi Arabia, the schools are pretty tolerant

Bring your faith as you like.  Ladies, just pretend it’s 19^th century America or England and dress accordingly and you’ll fit right in – that is, no bare legs or arms or shoulders at work.  While students will ask about your religion, and some (especially those that like you) will try to convert you to Islam, they generally respect that aspect of your life.  I’ve never heard an anti-Christian murmur in my whole time here (and for the record, I’m neither a Christian nor Muslim).

As for you Americans, don’t worry!  The Mad Mullahs are across the Gulf in Iran ensconced in Tehran and Arabs, in general, have many connections with the States, both personal and family, and differentiate easily between Americans and the American government.  Discussing politics is probably not the best, but you’d be surprised to discover how hospitable both Emiratis and the many Arabs of the UAE really are.  Those that aren’t are usually derided as scum.

I’ve also known a few Jewish people who have worked here; they’ve never had a problem.  Politics with Israel aside, you can generally come as you are and, so long as you don’t attempt to teach anything that contradicts their culture or religion, be tolerated doing what you like on the weekends with who you like.  Remember that you’re a teacher, of course – students here don’t need to be your Facebook friends or know about your dating life any more than your students back in your home country.

To illustrate the tolerance of the country, you need only see the “God section” in Lulu’s, a popular Wal-Mart (or Tesco)-style chain that openly carries Jesus, the Qu’ran, Buddha, and some Hindu gods.  Wait until you see the horrifically overpowering Christmas and Easter decorations they bring out every year with nary a peep from conservatives.

Your doors are open

With financial security in place and your light workload, you can do as like.  Come and go from the country and nobody will mind.  Take a weekend to Germany; a week in Thailand; a summer in Africa.  It’s all quite doable with this paycheck and this position.  Multi-continent holidays are the rule here rather than the exception.

You can afford to eat out every night and still make your savings goals.  You can upgrade to a car you thought you’d never have.  You needn’t worry about electric or water bills as those are subsidized almost to be irrelevant.  You can, in other words, have a lot of fun, save money for home, and really focus on the job as an extended, paid vacation.  If you live in Al Ain or Al Gharbia, where the majority of the schools are, you can still travel to Dubai or Abu Dhabi every weekend, stay with friends or in hotels, and return back with plenty of time to plan for your Sunday classes.

It’s incredibly easy to be satisfied outside of work.  Ex-pats are generally fun and outgoing people; be the same and you’ll make plenty of friends.

The new schools are fantastic

The new schools being built by ADEC are top notch.  Computer labs, iPads, Smart Boards, lovely facilities – you name it.  These aren’t quite the majority yet, but will be soon.  They’re opening new ones every year and they really do look nice.

You may have amazing students

There are some top notch students who are eager to learn, will clean your board and carry your books and bring you free food, and will be overall absolutely amazing to work with.

In Cycle 3, these students are generally in the Sciences sections – schools are split between Arts and Sciences, and, unlike other schools where students move around and change up rosters, these students stay in a single classroom all day and do not mix with other students.  A 12 Science 1 class can be expected to be quite motivated and on the ball, while a 12 Arts 1 can be expected to be less so.

As should be expected, in any given class, you may end up having truly amazing students you’ll genuinely miss when they leave.  When I quit, some of my sections gave me special certificates and gifts in parting.  They were great people and I was proud to teach them.

In Cycle 1, classes are still decided randomly.  The same rule applies, though – some students are top notch and you’ll genuinely miss them at the end of the year.

The Bad

The Bad

Of course, there’s plenty not to like, as well.

Your administrations probably won’t know they’re doing, or even necessarily speak English

Administrations in public schools are notoriously and near uniformly awful.  Some people like to say they are against the reform; I think that’s giving stupid people too much credit.  You can break the administrators into three groups: the ignorant, the evil, and the handful of gifted.

The ignorant ones are quite abundant.  They were given the job in order to create employment for Emiratis (and since the country’s unofficial unemployment rate is well above 10%, that’s a real concern) and nobody asked to see qualifications.  If they do have qualifications, they often got them during a time when the UAE’s universities were heavily influenced by Egypt, Jordan, and Syria – none of which are exactly winning awards in education.  (See: http://www.thenational.ae/business/industry-insights/economics/compulsory-military-service-will-help-solve-arab-youth-unemployment)

As such, these people bumble from office to office, signing papers, drinking coffee, laughing with cronies, and generally failing to manage the school.  They will tell you they support you when you need help with student behavior, but will then forget, backtrack, or simply be out of the building when you call that in.  They will observe your class because they’ve been told to but will have no idea what to look for and will either praise you for nonsense or criticize you for nonsense.

You can’t rely on them to even show up on time. Many of them believe being a principal or vice principal entitles them to show up late. You will want, desperately, for someone at ADEC to notice, swoop in, and fix their wagons permanently.  This will never happen.  Their immediate bosses will likely be Western political cowards unwilling to risk their jobs by going after an incompetent, but loyal, Emirati administrator.  Those bosses may even be themselves ignorant of the problems, or, as does happen, simply too stupid to see them.

Naturally, this caste makes up the overwhelming cadre of current principals.  ADEC has, in a roundabout way, admitted as much by having to bring in Western principals after they’d brought in us. (See: http://jobs.teachers.net/jobs/certified-k-12-teachers-principals-vice-principals-wanted-in-the-uae-a-lucrative-opportunity-professional-challenge/)

The other two categories – gifted and outright evil – are relative minorities.  The evil ones are those that, for whatever reason, hate you, ADEC, teaching, or are so afraid of losing their job they spend all their time and energy making everyone else look bad so they’re not the weakest link.  I had the latter in Al Ain – the bastard blamed us for his faults as often as he could.  He wrote us up when we were late, though he himself could stride in when he liked, lied to inspectors and his bosses regularly, refused to support us when we had discipline problems with students, schemed with our department head to make our program look bad and thereby bring back some of his loyal teachers who had been transferred or fired to make way for us, in addition to a litany of small corruptions ranging from little lies about the daily schedule to big lies about why he’d installed cameras in our classrooms (to watch us, not the students). Naturally, he spoke almost no English and frequently descended into hysterics in a high-pitched rant, sounding almost like a balloon losing air as he did.

Even though it’s not “bad,” I should make note of the gifted principals.  These people have not necessarily been properly trained, but just “get” education and are wonderful to work with.  I had one for my 2011-12 school year, but because he wasn’t loyal enough to ADEC, he was transferred as punishment without warning prior to the school year’s end.

The Westerners are not as helpful as they want to appear

Your advisor from ADEC comes in one day; thank God, you think, because you’ve got a problem with a teacher/student/administrator and you want the big guns.  Don’t waste your time.  The ADEC advisor will listen, shuffle around a bit, and then say you should talk to someone else, who will then proceed to do the same thing in a permanent circle that will continue until you give up.  Nobody but your local administration can solve whatever problem you’re having in your school. If your local administration is the problem, give up now, because you’ve already lost.  There’s nothing you can do and there’s nothing anyone else will do.

I learned this the hard way multiple times in my first two years.  In my first year, I learned that my principal didn’t respect or listen to the advisors brought in to support him.  No matter what they did – and they tried quite hard – he ignored them and was intent on running the school into the ground and making my life a hell.  In my second year, the new advisor thought the best way to win over that same principal was to cooperate and instead became an instrument for his thuggish and idiotic behavior.  Either way, the advisors saved no one.

The people who should get fired won’t be

A horribly run school can be a scandal in other countries.  Not so here.  The newspapers won’t report your war stories; that’s increasingly become taboo.  Parents will have no idea what’s going on or, less likely but still possible, won’t care.  ADEC will be an absentee landlord.  You will hate, hate, hate, this person or that, and think the evidence so overwhelming that they should be let go that it’s only a matter of time.  Those people will probably outlast you.  If anything, you’ll look like an ass when you have a hissy fit because of them and end up being fired yourself.

The UAE is two very different countries.  On the one hand, you have the thriving, vibrant, expatriate driven private sector.  People are hired and fired; competence is measured and evaluated; dirhams mark success or failure and companies go under when they can’t compete.

Then there is the public sector.  All of its income is derived from the dead dinosaurs under Abu Dhabi’s seas and sands.  Competence, efficiency, and knowledge are not the way forward; family name and ruthless loyalty are.  Thus you have morons in charge of very important projects solely because they love their leader the most, or because their cousin is the Minister of this or that.  The UAE’s government will always have money no matter what happens; the oil industry is safely in the hands of technical experts often brought in from the outside.  Therefore, it can waste cash on idiots and stupid projects as it likes.

A useless principal would be sacked in the UK or United States, where people would wonder why their taxes were being wasted.  But in the UAE, nobody notices because nobody’s paying taxes and money may as well be falling from the sky into the government’s coffers.

Procedure and consistency are for other people

Administration is typically made up of a principal, one or two vice principals, and two or three social workers.  The social workers are meant to enforce student discipline; the vice principals are supposed to back them.  The principal is called in as a last resort.

Or is it?  Because in my four years here, I never saw one chart explaining who does what in any of my schools, let alone a handbook for them.  Their responsibilities seem to be verbally based and change day to day.  Most social workers are useless, ignorant people who are there to drink coffee.  Filing reports with them is a waste of paper.

Just because they did one thing that one time does not mean you can repeat the incident.  The odds are good that, even when faced with similar circumstances, you’ll still get wildly different results.  One badly behaved student might be lashed into; the other, dismissed as a “good boy” despite the fact that their behavior and your complaint are precisely the same.

The closer you are to the ADEC central office, the more consistent things become.  The further you are, the more things are based on whim and reaction to whatever the day’s problems are.

The curriculum is misaligned for an economy based on oil and a political system based on tribal loyalty to a ruling family

The curriculum emphasizes critical thinking, inquiry, and information cross-examination.  These are all lovely traits in a globalized, Information Age nation-state with democratic institutions.  The UAE is none of these.  Religion and culture and intertwined so deeply that it’s hard to tell one from the other; government institutions are riddled with nepotism and sycophants; tribe trumps national identity every time, and everything hinges upon the fact that a set of seven ruling families at the top of the pile control the oil wealth, thanks to their names being on the signatures of the oil contracts.

Since the vast majority of students end up working for the government, you’d think the school skill sets would somehow be aligned to that.  Not so.  The old method of teaching is starkly Industrial Age – memorize this, write it down the same way, again and again because you’re told to.  Many schools and other subjects still practice this.  As you’ll be working for ADEC, you’re expected to bring critical thinking and inquiry into the mix.

Except you can’t actually think critically about much or inquire into anything.  It seemed possible prior to the Arab Spring to slowly reform the UAE into a kind of modern society.  But the arrest and detention of democratic activists here accompanied by more and more school assemblies about loyalty to the ruling family have made a lot of subjects dangerous. (See: http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2013/mar/06/uae-trial-94-activists)

Whereas most of us come from cultures that encourage opinions, discussion, and criticism of powers that be, the UAE values none of these traits openly.  There is a single set of truths that are allowed.  This has become a great deal more rigid since the Arab Spring.  It can even be difficult to get a conversation going about racism in school, despite this not being tolerated by the laws or government, because Emiratis have grown increasingly sensitive and irrational to any criticism of their country or society.  This trait has been actively encouraged by the government.  (For the record, I successfully taught an anti-racism unit two years running – but only having spent two years learning the “what not to dos”).

Most of the curriculum, additionally, is too advanced for students.  In Cycle 3, we often couldn’t get them to even write their own names in English correctly, let alone have them complete an inquiry-based assessment packet about globalization.  By the 2012-13 school year, I had started to refuse to teach ADEC’s curriculum, to the delight of my students, and focused on the far more useful mechanics of grammar and vocabulary instead.  I had a much better year as a result, with the major hiccups occurring when ADEC’s curriculum started to seep into my lessons.

The old schools are, well, old

Some of the old schools were built as far back as the 1980s, where, for some reason, the majority of photos from that time in the UAE remain black and white.  Some of them are converted prisons; most are cracked, smashed, and poorly air conditioned.  They are still the majority for now.  Thankfully, ADEC is tearing them down.

Social and Political Context of the UAE

Understand, first, the place, and the rest makes a great deal more sense.

Until 1971, civilization as we know it did not exist in this particular corner of Arabia.  Traces of civilization stopped in – they’ve found a Christian monastery on an island near Abu Dhabi city – but almost invariably left.  Humanity in this portion of the world couldn’t grow beyond simple, tribal units.

To understand the way a tribe works, simply equate it with an American gang.  Both are similar social structures – tightknit, with a single, powerful leader, often based on ethnicity, language, or blood, willing to use violence to protect one another from rival tribes and lacking any respect for strangers or institutions that are made of them.  Like a gang in New York City or London, being on the inside is just like being part of a family, cared for and looked after. But being just some guy who happens to wander through their territory can be abrasive.

Prior to 1971, the tracts of desert along the coast had seven different villages dotting up and down the beaches.  None of them had very much money, though Dubai managed to set itself up as a minor import-export trade center selling goods between British India and Persia.

After 1971, society went into flux.  Tribalism, where you were loyal only to people you knew or were in your family, remained the same in Emirati society.  What changed was the sudden rush of immigrants come to take part in the oil boom.

Almost all the oil wealth is controlled by Abu Dhabi, the capital city and largest emirate.  Population wise, Dubai is bigger, and the two royal families compete in largely harmless affairs, like horse racing or who’s got the biggest tower.

With oil income, the UAE not only doesn’t need to tax anyone – except tourists – but can afford a very generous welfare state.  Emiratis currently can retire after 20 years of government service (so a soldier who enters the army at 18 retires at 38 to live until they’re 72 or more with a full pension).

Newly married couples are given plots of land and money to build a new house (though this is notoriously slow, and Emiratis are restricted to their home emirate).  Education is free through university and the government sponsors high achieving students for foreign universities, so a clever Emirati student can go to Harvard or Cambridge for free.

Electricity and water are subsidized so as to hide their true costs – water alone costs the government millions of dirhams a month.  It hardly matters.  With oil at $100 a barrel and more, the government can continue to lavish huge chunks of money on its relatively small population – only about 900,000 Emiratis at last count.

The UAE is a classic rentier state – a country whose primary economic activity is the selling of natural resources to the outside world.  All that money is then spent inside the country in a variety of inefficient ways in order to maintain social stability, with large chunks of it going outside the country again to the very places it originally sold oil to.  The UAE’s oil goes to India, China, Europe, and Japan – not much to North America, which, between Canada, Mexico, and the U.S., is largely self-sufficient in oil.  Huge number of Indian workers therefore help their country “rent” this oil by working in the UAE – their monthly wages then go back to India.

The UAE’s ruling families in Dubai and Abu Dhabi recognized as early as the 1980s that this was a dangerous position to be in.  Should anything happen to the oil income, should anyone invent a new technology to cause oil prices to crash or should, for some reason, the UAE be unable to export, the entire country would come crashing down in a matter of months.  Lights would go out; farms dry up; the pointless artificial forest at Ghantoot return to dust.

So for almost three decades, the ruling families have pushed an expansion of the private sector.  In Dubai, this began with the construction of the Jebel Ali port, a wildly successful project that has now spawned imitations up and down the coast (Abu Dhabi just completed its own copy, Khalifa Port, in 2013).  Both Abu Dhabi and Dubai have attempted to create tourist traps out of sand; Dubai lauds its faux rich image and Abu Dhabi is attempting to be a cultural capital.  Abu Dhabi has invested heavily in solar and alternative fuels in hopes that they can be a technology hub in the future.  There’s even a plan for a space port in 2030.

All of it sounds lovely and exciting and implies a level of sophistication that has, with few exceptions, changed very little about Emirati society itself.  The ruling families of 1971 brought in shiploads of technology and infrastructure well beyond most Emiratis.  Emiratis, remember, were an illiterate, tribal culture used to Iron Age technology (with a few muskets here and there) in just the 1950s.  Tuning a radio set – let alone maintaining a radio station – was simply not possible.

That’s not to say they couldn’t learn.  Many did.  But they had to be taught.  Immigrants, mostly from India and Pakistan but also with trickles from the West to run the highly technical projects, flooded the country. Eventually, they overwhelmed the locals, now making up almost 90% of the total population.  Parallel to Emirati society, they built the private sector.  Emiratis, meanwhile, remained as they always did – loyal to their tribe, which were loyal to the ruling families in exchange for oil money.

Emiratis quickly did what we all would do in such circumstances – they demanded more and did less.  There was so much money it was quite possible to work a few hours a day and take a full paycheck.  The royal families, since their entire legitimacy rested on spreading the wealth, indulged them further and further.

While the private sector boomed, grew and eventually dominated the country, Emirati society retreated from their traditional neighborhoods, forming cultural ghettos on the margins of the UAE immune to the changes going on around them.  It’s very easy to spot students from these places – their mentalities reflect how backwards their neighborhoods are.

On the flip side, those few students who remain in the oldest parts of the cities are often fully globalized.  (The oldest section of Abu Dhabi – Al Hosn Fort – is now surrounded by skyscrapers, bars, and green gardens.  In 1940, this was Abu Dhabi’s entirety – today hardly any Emiratis still live there, but it’s easy to spot them once you hear them speak).

Emiratization, as it’s called, is the government’s program to encourage Emiratis to move away from the government and into the private sector.  Unfortunately, the economic incentives are simply not there.  As an Emirati, you’ll get paid more and work less in the government, and Emiratis have learned time and time again that if they simply refuse to work, the ruling families, out of panic, will resort to simply putting desks and chairs in government offices and calling those jobs.

Because the ruling families refuse to countenance democracy, and because they hesitate to become brutal despots for fear of driving out Western investment and Western military protection, they walk a very fine line.  They must please their citizens. Unfortunately, as is human nature, pleasing them is becoming more and more difficult.  Emiratis, with each passing year, want a higher and higher standard of living and are, additionally, quite bored with the “sitting at the desk drinking tea” jobs created for them.  Although globalized, hardworking Emiratis exist, they face many hurdles to success.  It’s far easier to simply cooperate with a system that diminishes the value of work and efficiency.

In addition, Emiratis must face down the wasta system – a tribal relic of personal influence that still dictates who gets what spoil.  Some Emiratis, having failed to back Sheikh Zayed, the founder of the UAE, in a battle against Saudi Arabia in Al Ain in the 1950s, have found their tribes disgraced and barred from the most plum government positions by his now-ruling sons.  The closer your family’s blood lineage to the ruling family, the easier it is to get things done, from getting your free plot of land to avoiding traffic fines.

Wasta affects expatriates, as well, although often along racial lines.  Emirati culture has mixed feelings about the West; on the one hand, it’s undeniable that the vast majority of technology, as well as its military goods, come from the West, and imply power and sophistication.  On the other hand, Emirati culture still has its Bedouin roots, which are deeply chauvinistic and often borderline arrogant, respecting only other Bedouin.  Emiratis rarely argue that Western nations are decadent failures – enough of them have studied in or visited Europe and America to know otherwise – but some, especially in the cultural ghettos, continue to maintain a haughty sense of superiority based solely on their Bedouin lineage.

Because of these mixed feelings, it’s far easier to get things done as a Westerner than any other group.  In the wasta hierarchy, Westerners enjoy a comfortable place near the top – although UK nationals may, on occasion, encounter a few anti-colonial sneers.

Additionally, Arab nationals from other countries often vie for influence and position with Westerners, drawing on their common language and, if they have it, their common religion to gain an edge against typically better educated and better trained Western competitors.  As the government attempts to globalize further and sets higher and higher standards, these people are losing their jobs more and more to Westerners come to seek their fortune in the emirates.  I myself replaced at least one, and possibly two, Arab teachers upon my arrival.

What is amazing in this system is how fragile it is.  A few lessons in school are enough to crack its foundations and assumptions.  Emiratis are increasingly easy to convince that the wasta system is bad – but unfortunately for them, power continues to be exercised through these conduits.

The political system rests wholly on this body of wasta.  Through its veins pump the oil money, funneling cash to this part or that.  ADEC, as a governmental organization, is part of this body.  Its primary purpose is not to reform the Emirati education system, but to provide jobs for Emiratis who otherwise would not be working.  Secondarily, it tries to implement Information Age curriculum and teaching styles; these goals will always be subsumed by the royal family’s main purpose – spending oil money on its people in exchange for political loyalty.  Efficiency is therefore not nearly as important as bodies in a building.  Neither is competency.  The currency of the realm is fidelity to the royal family and nothing else buys as much or guarantees more.

All other government functions – law, defense, infrastructure – are subordinated to this.  And thus you have a tiny country arming itself with the best weapons available to fight wars that it could never win (and wouldn’t need to, since the United States would ride to the rescue, as it did Kuwait in 1991). You have a dozen policemen sitting around playing on their phones in every police station rather than out on patrol.  You have towers catching fire and rolling blackouts in a country that should be able to afford avoiding both.

ADEC is therefore staffed by many Emiratis who are in place solely because of wasta or because the government felt the need to create jobs for unemployed Emiratis.  Attempts to up-skill Emiratis are slow and subject to the same inefficiencies; you may end up sitting down with someone who actually has no idea what their job really is.

Because of this, firing or replacing Emiratis is exceedingly difficult and politically fraught.  The government has zero incentive to get rid of poor performing Emiratis; in fact, it has every incentive in the world to find them a secure job.  This creates many of the headaches people face when dealing with ADEC.

And the Ugly

The Ugly

And then there’s the truly evil things that happen here.

People get attacked in these schools

In Zakher, in 2011, a cleaner took a photo of some students on her cell phone.  The girls formed a mob, chased her down, and brutally beat her in front of the Western advisors (including a personal friend of mine).  They reported it to the administration, ADEC, and the police.  Admin and the police agreed the cleaner deserved it for taking the photo; ADEC stayed mum, and no one was punished.

I met a guy at a conference who claimed a student had attempted to rape him in his school out in the desert past Al Ain.  He’d pushed him away and the student had backed off, but the incident was jarring, nonetheless.

One teacher left in December 2010 after learning several of his students had gang raped a maid and been told by the police to simply lay low for a few weeks.  When he asked them why they’d been absent, they told him the story.  He was too horrified to stay on after that.

My colleague in Abu Dhabi related a story about a teacher who had grabbed a water bottle from a student, accidentally spilling some on his traditional kandora.  This student reacted badly, calling his brother, a policeman, who showed up at school and, together with his younger brother, attacked and beat this teacher.  No charges were filed.

In Umm Ghaffa, outside Al Ain, numerous allegations of rape and assault filtered out every time you talked to someone who worked there.  The Cycle 3 boys were allegedly climbing over the fence and raping Cycle 1 boys so routinely that the administrations of both schools had to come up with a special plan to prevent this.  Upon inspection day, one photo of a student had to be taken down by the staff because he was notorious for being a local rapist.

In May 2013, one colleague at my school in Abu Dhabi was almost gang beaten by a group of grade 10s for trying to remove a student who had entered his classroom without his permission.  The students photographed the incident and posted it online.  Again, no charges were filed.

None of these incidents were reported in the newspapers and no charges were ever filed.  Police were often complicit in covering these stories up.  ADEC rarely did much about it.

Of course, don’t merely take my word for it. (See: http://www.thenational.ae/news/uae-news/courts/private-school-faces-dh5m-lawsuit-after-sex-attack-on-girl-7-abu-dhabi-court-told, http://www.thenational.ae/news/uae-news/girl-11-attacked-in-playground-was-near-to-death, http://www.thenational.ae/news/uae-news/education/rowdy-pupils-scare-away-newly-arrived-expat-teachers)

You have zero rights and the embassy can neither protect nor help you

Upon stepping off the plane, you’ve lost your rights to free speech, freedom of association, freedom of expression, and any other rights you’ve grown accustomed to.  If you’re categorized as Muslim, you’ve also lost freedom of religion, as you cannot openly change your religion.  Although the UAE Constitution provides for all these rights, none of them have ever been enforced.

In 2011, some ADEC teachers, unhappy about some HR issue, reportedly brought camping equipment to ADEC’s head office and intended on staying until their needs were addressed.  They were fired and deported, according to the story.

One man who arrived with me in 2009 was arrested and deported for having a blacklisted disease.  I still don’t know what that disease was, but he spent several weeks in jail for it.

ADEC has threatened its employees more than once about talking to the press.  If you’re quoted in a newspaper here saying anything but praise, you can lose your job.  My contract had a stipulation that I can be terminated for maligning ADEC’s reputation.  This was only written in Arabic.  Contracts are not standard and have changed over time, so I don’t know if this is still the situation.

You do not have the right to choose where you work or live.  ADEC can dictate this to you.  They do allow transfers, but typically only after a year of service.

The consular powers of the embassies located here are very limited.  If you’re arrested for breaking local law, expect local punishment and local jail time.  Your embassy will not get you out despite the allegations of torture in these prisons.  (See: http://news.sky.com/story/1085402/dubai-torture-claims-cameron-presses-uae)  About the only thing the embassy can do for you is replace your lost or stolen passport quickly.  They can also demand the UAE government turn over that passport if they are, for some reason, holding it.  But they have no powers to help you otherwise.

You can be arrested without charge or evidence

In spring 2012, a personal friend of mine, a head teacher in Dubai, learned one of his staff members had been arrested for publicly having sex with another man at a gas station between Dubai and Abu Dhabi.  Everyone thought the guy was an idiot; you don’t even do that in the West, let alone in a country where homosexuality is a death penalty crime. (See: http://www.thenational.ae/news/uae-news/courts/teacher-jailed-for-drunken-public-sex-with-another-man)

Later, however, we learned that the charges were apparently made up.  The court case was not open and the man’s due process rights not observed.  His confession may have been extracted under duress or torture.  My friend said that the Emirati witness saw something but misinterpreted it.  Regardless, it’s impossible to know because of the media blackout.

One of my colleagues in Abu Dhabi was arrested for telling a student he was acting like a fool at his prior school.  This student had a father in the police who overreacted.  He was eventually released and allowed to continue to work.  Had that father been more of an asshole, he might have faced jail time.

The new Cyber Crimes Law makes online discussions criminal

Even if you just need to vent, or want some support for your situation, doing so is now criminal.  Anything that maligns the reputation of the emirates, its rulers, or the government is a criminal and deportable offense. Although I’ve not yet heard of this law being implemented except to harass and arrest Emirati bloggers who are increasingly challenging the government, it’s only a matter of time before Westerners and teachers in general are caught by it.  (See: http://www.aljazeera.com/news/middleeast/2011/07/2011717213325459958.html)

Lack of support by administration results in feral children

I went from a very good administration to a very bad one in the same school.  The 2011-12 school year was a very easy year for me.  Teachers were respected; students behaved well; we could do our job.  The following year was a stark contrast. A new principal arrived and refused to manage the school, preferring to arrive late and eat more.

The students, especially the newly-arrived grade 10s, went feral.  Incidents of disrespect, fighting , and vandalism increased.  During an end-of-the-school year play, students openly shouted insults at their peers on stage as the principal was sitting directly in front of them.  He did nothing.  I myself was almost overwhelmed with students demanding to leave to go to the bathroom, presumably to smoke.  Again, the principal did nothing.

At one point in the spring of 2013, I was in administration making copies and witnessed a student completely covered in blood wandering the hall, looking to clean himself.  He was in clear view of the principal, who was on the phone with – and I shit you not here – his finger up his nose.  He did not even stir and I have no idea what happened to the students who beat this kid up.

One of the Tunisian teachers ended the year by saying the grade 10s had become actual savages.  For many of them, I had to agree.

Students’ level of English can be so low as to make teaching impossible

In addition, some will insult you in Arabic.  By the second year, I had acquired enough Arabic to understand a few of these insults and thereby shut much of it down.  Many teachers don’t bother and spend a lot of time shouting at their students while their students cuss back at them in their native language.  Don’t expect admin to fix this; they’ll blame you for not knowing Arabic, if they even go through the effort of assigning blame at all.

Parents often reflect their students – with disastrous results

Good students mean good parents.  That much is obvious.  But bad students mean just as awful parents, who may choose to insult you, try to fight you, or simply undermine you at every turn.  Even if a student is absent every single day of the year, these kinds of parents will still expect you to pass their kid.  Worse, admins will often back them.

Cheating is rampant, tolerated, and even encouraged

Some schools attempt to get higher marks by helping their students cheat.  I witnessed this for two straight years in Al Ain as the principal and the department head of whatever subject was being examined wandering from hall to hall, giving out answers.  Students understood this was the game and therefore didn’t put much effort into class.

Even under a good principal, it was hard for me to break the cycle of cheating.  It took nearly the full school year before my students learned to stop trying, as I would catch them and admin would back me when I failed them.  In Al Ain, I was forced to tolerate it because admin would not allow me to fail cheaters.  The principal often just shouted enough until he got what he wanted, but he always had the authority go into the system and change the marks behind my back anyway.

It is endemic of the system engendered here by the government’s handouts.  Students have grown spoiled in too many cases; what’s worse, the adults in the room indulge and encourage them to remain so.

(See: http://gulfnews.com/news/gulf/uae/education/uae-students-justify-cheating-research-reveals-1.126060, http://www.thenational.ae/news/uae-news/education/pupils-have-been-cheating-since-kindergarten, http://www.thenational.ae/news/uae-news/education/university-expels-34-students-for-cheating)

Your accommodation might fall down

Sure, there’s the articles linked to on Wikipedia about the infamous courtyard collapse.  But off the newspapers, many teachers have ended up in substandard housing, including myself.  In Al Ain especially, the housing started off nice but became shit.  This is less ADEC’s fault than the shoddy building practices of the UAE in general.  Nothing lasts.  Even if your place starts nice, it will go to shit quickly.  People don’t maintain things well and inspectors don’t inspect very much.  Therefore, very few buildings last long.

Should you work for ADEC?

Should you work for ADEC?

That’s a question only you should really answer.  The point of this blog is to educate.  With this information, you’re in a better position to make that call than I was.

Would I do it all over again, knowing what I know?  Yes, I would.  ADEC provided me with a life I could never have had otherwise.  I saw places I never dreamed of and I had the honor of working with Emiratis in a country where they are increasingly invisible.

As a teacher, I made ethical compromises that I’m still not comfortable with.  I was not as effective as I could have been.  And clearly, there came a point where I had to quit.  But that does not mean I regret my years from 2009-13 and that I wish it all undone.

I had some fantastic students.  I made some great friends both inside and outside of school.  Especially when I moved to Abu Dhabi, I was well-adjusted and satisfied.  Like all jobs, I had good days and bad days.  But the good days often outweighed the bad.

Again, this blog is not meant to persuade you not to take a job with ADEC.  It is meant to answer some common questions people have before coming here.  It’s also meant to lessen your culture shock upon arrival.  You can overcome all the Bad and the Ugly if you so choose.  I did for four academic years.

But some people are not cut out for this kind of work.  Some people will do a runner by the first exam season.  That’s a waste of your time, ADEC’s, and, what’s worse, the students who do deserve a quality education.

This is a reforming system, and so some things will get better.  It’s a developing country in the Middle East, so some things are broken.  It’s a rentier state, so some things won’t ever get better until the oil money runs out.  These are things to keep in mind when facing some of the frustrations of ADEC.

As a final guide, I suggest you ask yourself the following.  The more positive answers you give, the better prepared you are for the ADEC experience.  You do not by any means need to say yes to all of this – but the higher your yes count, the happier you’ll be here.

1). Are you willing to give up the right to where you live and work in exchange for the right to travel and save?

2). Are you able to stifle opinions you may have if no one in the room wants to hear them? (Additionally, are you self-aware enough to know when that’s the case?)

3). Are you ok with working in a culture that will not value the same things as you and may even openly contradict things you care about?

4). Can you work for an idiot, remembering that the tradeoff is a shorter day?

5). Can you work for a system that hunts homosexuals, political dissidents, and other socially unacceptable people, remembering that you yourself never have to do such a thing?

6). Can you avoid anger when your students don’t respect you?  Can you manage a classroom other than by shouting?

7). Are you willing to deliver curriculum that may make your job harder?

8). Are you willing to change grades for students when administration asks you to?  Are you willing to find creative solutions to find a way to make the students work even when they don’t show up to class?

9). Can you work in a school that doesn’t respect deadlines?

10). Are you willing to accept that some days there may be little to no teaching or learning in your school owing to factors beyond your control?

Make the right choice for you; remember that life is about tradeoffs. Your work life might be hard, but your home life might be amazing.  You’re really the only person capable of saying if that’s ok with you.