The Teaching Profession

currents of reform overturn traditions on teacher training and careers

Economic and educational reforms, with their potential for

transforming Qatar into an academic hub in the Arabian Gulf, are redefining the role of primary and secondary teachers in the country’s long-term development.

“With the reform and the new education policies, we need more teachers who are really professional, who really have a mission to teach,” said Eman Al-Ansari, an associate professor at Qatar University’s College of Education. At the same time, Qatar requires a cultural shift to attach more prestige to the profession. “The teacher is not that highly regarded within this society,” Dr. Al-Ansari said.
 

There are a number of opposing forces tugging at the number of people entering the teaching profession, all of them linked to the economic and cultural changes the country is undergoing. Until quite recently, teaching was one of the few viable professions for Qatari women, which sent a steady stream of students into teaching programs and out into schools. As Qatar has opened its economy and overhauled its schools and universities, women have far more academic and professional options. At the same time, more women are going to college than ever before, which has the potential to deepen the pool of applicants.


But experts generally agree that, in contrast to some countries which face a dire shortage of teachers, Qatar’s present challenge is not strictly one of numbers. A recent report by UNESCO estimated Qatar’s pupil-teacher ratio at the primary level at an unusually low ratio of 9:1. Rather, what is needed most is to make the profession more professional, strengthening the qualifications of teachers and focusing on continued professional development. There is also a need to draw Qatari men, almost entirely absent from the classroom, into the profession, they say.

Qatar University is the country’s only university-level institution offering degrees in education. As the university itself has undergone reform since 2003, its philosophy toward teacher training also has changed. In the past, QU’s College of Education had large undergraduate programs for teachers; of those, now only physical education and arts survive, graduating less than 50 students per year. QU also offers post-graduate diplomas in early childhood education and special-needs education; those programs are also a minuscule portion of QU’s approximately 9,000 students.

Rather, the university now steers students to major in another subject – biology, for example – and then take classes related to teaching later on. It is also looking to expand a one-year-old program, called the Primary Educator Preparation Program, run jointly with Texas A&M University (TAMU) and financed by the Supreme Education Council.

The program, which requires applicants to hold an undergraduate degree and pass an English-language test, prepares teachers to teach in kindergarten through sixth grade. Students take 30 credit hours over 10 months, and end their training with a 10-week internship in a local school. Virtually all instruction is in English; students tend to be recent university graduates, although there are number of Ministry of Education teachers also participating this year.


Like most new projects, the program has felt some growing pains. While about 60 students, all women, started the program last year, only about two dozen graduated in June. The challenge of studying in English proved particularly daunting for many who left the program, while others were overwhelmed by the simultaneous demands of study, work and family. Patricia Lynch, the program director, notes that TAMU/QU have refined the criteria for acceptance and provided next year’s students -- expected to number around 30 -- with advance training in English and information technology, which should significantly lower the drop-out rate.

Once in the job market, conditions for teachers vary widely in Qatar, depending on the type of school. There is no single agency that regulates and coordinates all the different types of schools, and many, such as the community schools that cater to a specific nationality, follow curricula and work standards that are closer to those used in their home country than to Qatar.

Before the reform that created Independent Schools began three years ago, all public school teachers became Ministry of Education employees. The Ministry -- rather than an individual school or city -- sets salary rates and other benefits for Qatari employees. Like all sectors, education also relied on expatriates to fill positions.

While public schools are filled with many excellent teachers and administrators, sometimes policies towards teachers’ minimum qualifications and preparation were loose; once hired, in the traditional approach to learning, many teachers were expected to limit their task to delivering fixed content from a textbook.

But as Qatar has looked to develop its human resources and integrate itself into the global economy, demands on the country’s students and teachers have been transformed. Students must come out of secondary schools prepared to study in the world-class universities now present in Qatar, and to work competitively in corporations and industries.

Hanan Al-Meer, an English teacher at the Al-Khaleej Independent Elementary School for Boys in Doha, coordinates five English teachers from Grades 3-5. While she loves time in the classroom, she has found attracting and retaining qualified teachers to be challenging; she would like to begin a French-language program at the school, but is worried about being able to staff it. “We have a shortage of qualified teachers who want to join Independent Schools,” she said. “This is a problem.”

But at the same time, Ms. Al-Meer has noticed that new teachers who join the school are enthusiastic about the workshops, the resources available, the teamwork and the general focus on professional development. “They want to know more, more and more,” she said.

To ensure there is standardized hiring criteria at the Independent Schools, the SEC is in the process of putting into place national professional standards for teachers and school leaders. For kindergarten and primary teachers, for example, Qataris would be required to hold a Bachelor’s degree in education or a diploma from the TAMU/QA program. Those Qataris who hold Bachelor’s degrees in other fields would be required to have two years of experience as teachers. Non-Qataris would have to meet the same academic criteria, but would be required to have three years of experience if they didn’t specialize in education.

“People are becoming more aware that for the reform to work, the quality of teachers is absolutely essential,” said Jan Wilson, the director of the SEC’s Curriculum Standards Office.

As it raises the bar on qualifications, the SEC is also seeking to make conditions at Independent Schools more attractive, recently introducing new personnel regulations for Qataris. Among other measures, the SEC lifted the basic monthly salary for Qatari employees to a minimum of QR 6,500 for university graduates from QR 3,750 and QR 4,400 for secondary school graduates from QR 2,500 in the past.
The SEC wants to see the level of Qatarization at 70% among teachers in Independent Schools.

In a recent interview, Sabah Al-Haidoos, the director of the Education Institute, herself a longtime teacher, explained the SEC’s approach to teachers. “Let us think of the teacher as a professional. He has his ambitions to foster and his profession to promote, and then he looks to the financial and administrative considerations of the profession.”

“The first need of teachers is professional development, so we provide many opportunities for training and professional development inside the Independent Schools. The second is to have a financial and administrative framework that encourages teachers to join and stay in Independent Schools,” she said. “Our goal is to put into place benefits and incentives for teachers in all Independent Schools. And to prompt them to train and to develop their careers. Year after year the culture of change will progress and everyone will see that it is to the benefit of Qatar and Qatari people.”