Cultural Markers

Emirati Stereotypes: Education

17.9.2016

Outside of the United Arab Emirates culture, there happens to be an array of misunderstood cultural markers and stereotypes. The one that stands out to me the most happens to be the misconception of how we, as nation view education. 

"A country's greatest investment lies in building generations of educated and knowledgeable youth." Initially, our hunger for education was prompted through our countries founding father, Sheikh Zayed Al Nahyan. He encourages his people to rely on education. He made it clear that to achieve what our country envisions to become we must invest in the youths education. His legacy is ongoing as he had managed to inspire a profusion of generations to educate themselves through schooling and real life experiences. Sheikh Mohammed Al Nahyan, the crown prince of the UAE continues to remind us of his father's initial vision by stating "Education is a country’s single most important priority and investing in the educational development of the individual represents the only real investment". 
Unfortunately, this never manages to translate to the outsider's perspectives on Emirati's, considering the biggest stereotype that I am faced with is: Emirati's do not require a higher education considering jobs are always available to them through "wasta" . This leads us to the consequential stereotype that locals are inefficient and lack experience in their work. This couldn't be further from the truth. Emirati culture encourages students to complete as much educational experience as possible. It has become an expectation now for students to graduate school and receive an undergraduate education. It's also now almost an expectation for successful students to carry on and receive postgrad education to aid them further in their workplaces. UNESCO has stated in 2008 that the general literacy rate of 60% in the 1970's had transcended into over 97% by the year 2006. Another point to make is that although some students do not plan to venture into conventional workplaces in the future, they are still encouraged to receive some type of higher education as a foundation or maybe even a "Plan B". 

A lot of people poke fun at  "wasta" and insist that it is one of the only reasons members of our society reach certain job posts. Having connections between families is a part of the local culture in terms of the social community. you are encouraged to get to know , and build relations, with everyone that is around you. This leads people to become exposed to many individuals who they could even refer to and adopt those connections with, in their professional lives as well. For instance, I am looking for a replacement for my newspapers journalist, and I remember that my great aunt's grandson had just graduated NYUAD with honours in a Journalism major last spring. What do I do? Call up my great aunt Suhaila and ask her to hit her grandson up with a job offer. A few job interviews and security checks later, Abdullah is now working for my newspaper. Now, is this wasta? Or is it another methodology of recruitment. Now in my point of view, I believe that with system comes order. Every sector within the UAE whether it be private or public contains a systematic recruitment process. Knowing that in the system, no one can be hired or replaced without hitting the requirements and qualifications, we now are faced with the fact that "wasta" doesn't mean "hire all my cousins, cuz we're tryna load up the family heirloom" but it could translate to a different recruitment strategy.

Now all Arabic family jokes aside, I would like to conclude this blog post by referring back to two of the many sources of inspiration, Sheikh Zayed Al Nahyan and his son Sheikh Mohammad, for without them I would most likely not be where I am today; nor would any other Emirati at that. "Our educational development plans allow us to look forward to an even brighter future of generations capable of handling twice the responsibilities as a result of being founded on knowledge, learning and adherence to customs and traditions." As a developing nation, our citizens are very reliant on education. Not only does it develop our minds as a nation but also it has proven to be effective in terms of growing the countries social, architectural, and overall governmental systems. Once people begin to understand further about Emirati cultural markers such as this one, it will finally allow people to lose their prejudice against locals and their ability to learn and their validate the amount of preexisting knowledge we uphold as a nation. Stereotypes are found anywhere in which holds differences, once you are exposed to a culture unlike your own everything seems to become exaggerated and misunderstood. But if we, as humans, used our ability to learn and observe further there will be no more stereotypes and fewer people will be generalised due to their religious, cultural, gender and biases of the sort. 

References:

• Abdulla, Fatma, and Natasha Ridge. "Where Are All The Men?" Towards an Arab Higher Education Space: International Challenges and Societal Responsibilities. Beirut: Unesco, Regional Bureau for Education in the Arab States, 2010. 125-28. Print.