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FOR many years, Kuwait has attracted teachers from all over the world to work within its many private schools, from countries in Europe and North America and also from places like Australia and New Zealand etc. As a new teacher, I didn’t know what to expect when I got on that plane, when I left my friends and family in Canada, to work on the other side of the world. People don’t know a lot about Kuwait. The world is an ignorant place, and I guess I was ignorant too. I had everyone telling me that I was crazy to go live next to Iraq; that issue was everyone’s main concern. Others had the idea that Kuwait was a nation that oppressed its women. People wondered how I would be treated as a foreign woman …Well, I am now returning to Kuwait for my fourth year. It is my other home. I feel like I am almost an ambassador of Kuwait because I defend it and often praise it to anyone who will listen. No nation is perfect and Kuwait has its flaws, but overall Kuwait has been good to me. I have been treated well by most people, and I am grateful.

I am also confident, however, that Kuwait has benefited from me. I am a qualified teacher; I graduated from an excellent Canadian University. I work hard to teach children in Kuwaiti schools and I believe that I have made a positive difference in many of their lives. There are many, many other educators like me in Kuwait. Students around the country benefit from our professional training, knowledge, and experience; they also benefit from those unique cultural and pedagogical perspectives that we can contribute to Kuwait’s educational environments. Working in Kuwait is very different than what many of us are used to and adjusting is often difficult. The salaries in Kuwait are not as high and competitive as they used to be, so working here is rarely about money anymore. Those of us who stay and make Kuwait our home do so because we genuinely love it, because we believe in what we are doing, and because we want to better the educational institutions of this country.

Unappreciated
Over the past months, however, we as educators have been made to feel unappreciated, unwanted, and even unsafe. A major incident occurred at the beginning of the summer, involving an American female Vice Principal from Al Bayan Bilingual School. Many levels of the Kuwaiti government, and its legal system treated her unfairly. She was threatened, detained in Kuwait (and therefore prohibited from seeing her family), and generally treated like a criminal — just because she punished a student with an in-school suspension for breaking a major school rule (he engaged in physical fighting, therefore endangering the safety of others). “Wasta” went out of control and this student’s father did everything he could to make life very difficult for this Vice Principal. He succeeded, but at the same time he made Kuwait look like a very dangerous and corrupt place to work. Closely following this widely publicized incident, was the decree made by Kuwait’s Minister of Education — Ms. Nooriya Sabeeh. She affirmed that Kuwait had recently cancelled the contracts of a large number of overseas administrators and also said that Kuwaitis will eventually replace all foreign administration staff in private schools, over the next few years.

Such a declaration sent shock waves around the national and international teaching communities. As a result, many teacher web sites and professional organizations have issued warnings about working in Kuwait and have even called for Western educators to boycott Kuwait and cancel their current contracts — some have. The incident involving the Al Bayan VP served as a warning in itself, but then the official attitude of Education Minister suggested to us educators that our experience, leadership, and knowledge is no longer an asset to Kuwait. Qualified teachers and administers have had years of training in educational philosophy, theory, and practice. British teachers, for example, are familiar and experienced with British curriculum, history, and teaching methods. They have lived in that system. The British schools within Kuwait are accredited only because they employ a certain percentage of British teachers and educational experts. When parents send their child to a private British school, don’t they want the leader of the school to be an expert within the British system so that child will receive the best education possible, so that child may go on to study in a British University if desired?

Wise
I’m not suggesting that Kuwaitis cannot or will not make great leaders of the schools, but not all of them will. It wouldn’t be wise to bring a native British man in to be the academic principal of an Arabic school, would it? There are many excellent administrators working now in Kuwait from native English-speaking countries. It would be unfortunate to lose all the insight and credibility that they bring to the private educational systems in Kuwait. If Kuwait replaces these administrators as threatened, Kuwait will also lose many of their private teaching staff. Do the students of this nation deserve to undergo such a tremendous loss?

We — as foreign educators in Kuwait, working in the private system — ask you to stand up for us. Your Minister of Education — Nooriya Sabeeh — has made us feel undervalued and discriminated against. Deciding to replace an entire administrative workforce with one particular race — Kuwaitis — is actually racist and goes against international human rights and labor laws. The way the American VP was treated recently was also very frightening and unjust, in terms of basic humanity — in terms of the way God wants us to treat each other. Therefore, the reputation of Kuwait is in jeopardy — on a national and international scale. I want to be proud when I tell people that I work in Kuwait; I want to feel safe and appreciated when I do my job here. If you value us, and the service we provide as qualified educators, please show us. The schools of this nation need to be filled with the best and most experienced educators and leaders, who are in administrative positions based on their own professional merit, NOT because of their nationality.


By Shannon Griffiths

svgriffiths1@hotmail.com