Boys focus on their financial goals

Kareem Shaheen

• Last Updated: November 05. 2009 11:23PM UAE / November 5. 2009 7:23PM GMT

Emiratis said the “gender gap” in the educational system came as no surprise, even as a report warned that only 27 per cent of Emirati males in public schools go on to pursue university degrees.

“It’s sometimes a financial decision and sometimes the lack of interest in education,” said Safiyya Ahmed, a retired principal at a female public school whose son attended an all-boys public school.

“Schools don’t do anything to make the students like studying. It’s just learning by heart, boys especially. As soon as they finish they just want to get the money, they don’t want to go back to studying,” she said.

Rafia Abdul Hamid, an Emirati human-resources professional whose nieces and nephews go to public schools in Dubai, said all-boys schools had discipline issues that discouraged students.

“Boy schools have no discipline at all. The teachers are often scared of the students,” she said.

Another reason many Emirati boys choose to forego a university education is that “local boys have a lot of demands”, said Ms Abdul Hamid.

“As soon as they reach 18 they want a car, they want a mobile phone every few months. And the parents want to fulfil his needs but they often don’t have that much money.

“It’s the boys’ tendencies. They’re impatient, they want to buy everything, and the family can’t do that. So the boys decide to take charge and do things for themselves. It’s a purely financial goal.”

This means that many families accept a boy’s decision to get a job. “It feels like a burden that has been lifted, and the kid pays the price,” she said.

Their female counterparts did not face the same problems, she said.

“The girls’ needs are fewer. They don’t spend so much time outside. The family can control the daughter more. Boys are out of control. I can’t tell my son to stay at home and not go out.”

Khalid al Masabi, 23, an Emirati student who obtained a diploma from a technical college and wants to earn a bachelor’s degree, said another problem was the tendency of males to marry early once they finished high school.

Mr al Masabi said four of his high-school friends had got married at that stage.

“Most of them don’t finish college, no way,” he said. “By the time they’re 21 they have children.”

The trend was “definitely harmful”, Ms Ahmed said. “Education and health care are the two important pillars in a society, if a country wants to advance.”

She said higher hurdles should be placed in the way of public-sector jobs so Emirati students did not rely on them instead of going to college.

Ms Abdul Hamid agreed, saying the lack of university education harmed future generations: “When they marry and get children they can’t teach them or even help them with their homework. They can’t help their children.”

Mohammed Ahmed Khalfan, a Grade 9 pupil at Zayed the Second School, an all-boys public school in Abu Dhabi, said the attitudes of other students affected his own desire to study.

“If the school atmosphere is OK, you like to go,” he said. “If there’s a lot of fighting, and that kind of thing, you don’t like to go.”

At his previous institution, a model school also in Abu Dhabi, the atmosphere had been “destructive”.

“Students say words that are beyond their age, they insult the teacher, words that can’t be uttered.”

“They would also smoke. It was dirty. They would also send each other bad films,” he said.

Mohammed’s mother, Shamma al Mansoori, said teachers in his previous school did their best in the classroom to get students to pay for private lessons, which affected student performance.

“I feel the teachers in the classroom don’t give them the proper explanation because they want them to go for additional private lessons in the afternoon,” said Ms al Mansoori.



kshaheen@thenational.ae