January 2008
The PPP Experience
Now let’s start the discussion of PPP with a few prejudices. Let’s assume that any Northern Arab who worked there went there with the assumption that culturally and linguistically the similarities would outweigh the differences. Now assume that any European who went there went there with strong Liberal principles in mind. The expectations of our hypothetical Northern Arab can be dealt with quickly. Linguistically and culturally the differences are vast. In fact at the Ministry of Education School I worked in, one Ministry teacher, after giving a diatribe against Shia Muslims, informed me that Lebanese were not true Arabs, that ‘they may as well be European.’ At a later date I was told Tunisians did not count as Arabs, because of a difference in dialect. Certainly the Lebanese I have come across have more in common with countries on both sides of the Mediterranean than they do with Gulf State countries. So even a Northern Arab of any nationality may have difficulty fitting in on a PPP contract.
As for the hypothetical European teacher, Liberal principles do not help in such a culture. You are dealing with a thin veneer of conservative culture- even though it’s just a sham, the surface is there. So if SABIS insists on employing Europeans, they must at the very least be conservative in outlook and appearance. Being a wishy-washy ‘anything goes so long as it doesn’t frighten the horses’ Liberal just means you will be permanently shocked and offended. You will also unintentionally frequently shock and offend your Emirati hosts. However this is not enough to survive the PPP experience. The European ideally ought to be a practicing Muslim. Having a thorough working knowledge of the faith is not good enough for the simple reason that in an insular community change will be feared, and it will be feared even more if it comes with an un-Islamic face, and un-Islamic dress. SABIS or whoever organised the PPP project failed to use a mallet of sufficient calibre to hammer home to the local population that they were here as teachers of academic subjects and nothing else. SABIS failed to do adequate research for prospective staff to gauge their suitability for such a project.
When SABIS staff entered the Ministry of Education schools they took over all aspects of the English and Maths course, riding rough-shod over everything that had gone before in spite of questions and protests and appeals to caution from junior SABIS staff members. But nothing was stopping the arrogant, Houdiniesque smoke and mirrors, Roman juggernaut that is the SABIS system. SABIS honestly believes their system is infallible and provided it is followed rigidly anyone can learn from it. Well that may be true in some cases but certainly not on the PPP project. Greater flexibility was required, but SABIS does not allow any deviation from their syllabi.
The individual ability and educational needs of the children were not taken into account in the Ministry of Education schools because any child can master the SABIS system in SABIS’s eyes. In reality it is possible a fair few of the children could- if the SABIS system was of any relevance to them. However when a child is expected to be a shepherd, like his Father, do they really care about the English language or Algebra? Knowledge of such subjects and rigorous testing is hardly necessary for the farming communities that can be found around the UAE-Saudi/ UAE-Oman border territories.
It surprises me not, in circumstances like that, that SABIS teachers were physically assaulted- it’s just a shame that knowing how the SABIS system works it will have been some poor 20something straight out of college that got smacked in the face when in reality it should have been SABIS management. No doubt they were two busy in their offices in Abu Dhabi counting their cash bags while the teachers were living and working in a nightmare. The Ministry of Education Schools are just as much a victim in this sorry saga, as the PPP teachers. Both factions were understandably nervous of one another. SABIS should have been organising a proper dialogue between the two factions and providing support to their teachers and reassurance to the MoE administration. During my tenure, in spite of many promises, such a dialogue never occurred to my knowledge. I suspect this was an example of the SABIS divide and rule policy, where everyone is suspicious of everyone else because it makes such an obviously flawed system rule more effectively. As the year wore on, more responsibilities were placed on staff who became increasingly unpopular with their Emirati hosts. Ultimately though, SABIS couldn’t have cared less what went on, so long as they collected their money.
The PPP contract is due to run for three years. SABIS are half-way through their second year and I doubt that they have learned from their mistakes.