A friend of mine has just launched a Blog on women in the Arab World, this has inspired me in many ways, and I wish to give her credit for this blog too.
She has requested from me to give her some what a summary of things I have debated in my conversations with her (mostly over messenger). And so I have just completed writing her an e-mail. I wished to share it here:
Academics in the state of Qatar has recently embarked on a new experiment (Note:Qatar as a whole is an experiment) If I may first start with VCU, a females only design school and an alternative to the "out-of-date" Qatar University. VCU taught women to think critically and to contribute to their society, yet if you go and meet many of it's graduates today, you will hear them talk of the disappointment they faced upon graduation. For they realized their country wasn't prepared (and still isn't) to absorb them in the work force, the work force that is dominated by non-qataris. Many of them today work in fields that don't relate to their degrees, and there are very few that have succeeded in holding appropriate positions, but those few can do little to lift the spirit of the others.
The second experiment was forced onto Qatar University, when it was obliged to compete with the Qatar Foundation universities (e.g. VCU). QU aimed to make the Qatari females speak English as though it was their mother tongue; whatever you wanted to major in you had to speak English. Today almost all departments at Qatar university instruct in English.. and Just now I recognized that Qatar university's website is actually in English, maybe that's why they needed the Toefl huh? Anyhow, this step led to a very high drop-out rate and suspensions from the university. Many of these students (that were superb students at high school) were forced to stay home, when they realized that all of the alternative universities were unisex (including VCU today), something their families still aren't ready to accept.
Finally, a very important experiment that needs a whole e-mail to shed light onto, is Independent Schools. To touch on the influence of Independent Schools and women in the field of academics, a person need to recognize first that Qatari women have always loved the position of a teacher, yet this has been changed after the implementation of Independent Schools. That's because it has no appreciation to those dedicated women that have spent sometime all their professional life teaching in public schools that didn't pay them enough! Today these females fear nothing more than being employed in one of those schools, and many of them have already fled the education field (when I find statistics on this I shall share them with you). Independent schools have come to ask more of those dedicated women, ask them to join workshops, work over time, (and much more) that some teacher have described to me as humiliating and insulting to a person that has been teaching for so long.
To sum things up, the qatari female is faced today with so many obstacles in the field of education, she is unable to reach her full potential because of restrictions such as language barriers. This is only a brief description of the problems one can see, I might sound bias, but lets leave the other side of this debate for our loyal newspapers.
The link to her blog
:
She has requested from me to give her some what a summary of things I have debated in my conversations with her (mostly over messenger). And so I have just completed writing her an e-mail. I wished to share it here:
Academics in the state of Qatar has recently embarked on a new experiment (Note:Qatar as a whole is an experiment) If I may first start with VCU, a females only design school and an alternative to the "out-of-date" Qatar University. VCU taught women to think critically and to contribute to their society, yet if you go and meet many of it's graduates today, you will hear them talk of the disappointment they faced upon graduation. For they realized their country wasn't prepared (and still isn't) to absorb them in the work force, the work force that is dominated by non-qataris. Many of them today work in fields that don't relate to their degrees, and there are very few that have succeeded in holding appropriate positions, but those few can do little to lift the spirit of the others.
The second experiment was forced onto Qatar University, when it was obliged to compete with the Qatar Foundation universities (e.g. VCU). QU aimed to make the Qatari females speak English as though it was their mother tongue; whatever you wanted to major in you had to speak English. Today almost all departments at Qatar university instruct in English.. and Just now I recognized that Qatar university's website is actually in English, maybe that's why they needed the Toefl huh? Anyhow, this step led to a very high drop-out rate and suspensions from the university. Many of these students (that were superb students at high school) were forced to stay home, when they realized that all of the alternative universities were unisex (including VCU today), something their families still aren't ready to accept.
Finally, a very important experiment that needs a whole e-mail to shed light onto, is Independent Schools. To touch on the influence of Independent Schools and women in the field of academics, a person need to recognize first that Qatari women have always loved the position of a teacher, yet this has been changed after the implementation of Independent Schools. That's because it has no appreciation to those dedicated women that have spent sometime all their professional life teaching in public schools that didn't pay them enough! Today these females fear nothing more than being employed in one of those schools, and many of them have already fled the education field (when I find statistics on this I shall share them with you). Independent schools have come to ask more of those dedicated women, ask them to join workshops, work over time, (and much more) that some teacher have described to me as humiliating and insulting to a person that has been teaching for so long.
To sum things up, the qatari female is faced today with so many obstacles in the field of education, she is unable to reach her full potential because of restrictions such as language barriers. This is only a brief description of the problems one can see, I might sound bias, but lets leave the other side of this debate for our loyal newspapers.
The link to her blog
:
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