UAE’s First Women Teachers
[ The University of Melbourne Voice Vol. 3, No. 2
12 May - 9 June 2008 ] By Genevieve Costigan
Ten years ago the idea that confident young Emirati women, dressed in traditional black abeyas and headscarfs, would stand before classes of 30 young boys expertly teaching English was just a dream.
Now throughout the United Arab Emirates (UAE) that dream is a reality.
The Bachelor of Education degree, developed in partnership between the University of Melbourne and the UAE’s Higher Colleges of Technology, has produced the first generation of Emirati women with professional education qualifications in the teaching of English. The program was the first dedicated teacher education degree in the UAE and commenced in 2004.
Associate Professor Ray Misson and senior lecturer Dr Julie Hamston from the Melbourne Graduate School of Education recently returned from a trip to the United Arab Emirates to certify the Bachelor of Education. They travelled across the country over five days to six women’s colleges, assessing the standard and quality of the program.
“The program runs extremely well and we were very impressed with the students. Its success can be seen not only in the quality of the graduates but also in the rapid progression of some recent graduates to positions as vice-principals in schools and senior administrative roles,” says Associate Professor Misson.
The need for a professional workforce, due to the wealth brought to the UAE from oil revenues and the subsequent modernisation of society, was well understood by the founding President of the UAE, Sheik Zayed Bin-Sultan Al Nahyan. He directed money into healthcare, education and national infrastructure and established the Higher Colleges of Technology as a network of technical vocational colleges with men and women’s campuses in each Emirate.
“Given that only about one quarter of the population is Emirati the initiative to create a workforce of Emirati women teachers was incredibly innovative,” Dr Hamston says. “The young women have a strong sense of themselves as agents of change”.
The four-year free degree engages the young women in complex theory and practice with the focus on critical thinking and active learning, engagement with technology and the concept of lifelong learning.
“Their work is child-centred with lots of language immersion – radical in a country where the rote learning of language was the norm,” Dr Hamston says. “We observed one student, Fatima, teaching a class of boys in a small poor government school in Fujairah in the north of the country and it was inspiring seeing her using a wide range of strategies in grammar exercises, partner work, games and role plays in large groups. The amount of English those boys could speak was amazing.”
Associate Professor Misson notes that the young graduates are immensely committed and resourceful and at times those from wealthy families use their financial resources to back this up. “A college supervisor arrived at a very poor school to find it being painted. She said to the student teacher how wonderful this was and the student teacher replied, ‘Yes, well how could you expect anyone to learn in a such a terrible environment? I called my father and had him send in the painters!’”
In the third year of their degree 20 of the young women come to the University of Melbourne for a two-week study tour where they sit in on classes and visit schools, including Islamic schools in Melbourne. “While they are chaperoned on the visit the women are often experiencing independence for the first time and it is a huge event for their families to let them come to the other side of the world,” Dr Hamston says.
While the UAE’s Higher Colleges are enthusiastic about the expertise the Melbourne Graduate School of Education has brought to their colleges both Associate Professor Misson and Dr Hamston stress that the partnership has given them not only the opportunity to design a program from the ground up but also immense insight into Emirati culture and, more widely, a greater understanding of the Arab world.
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