Journey to the South - First Day

Early morning of Monday, exatly 9:00 AM was our flight from Manila to Davao via Philippine Airlines. It was so tiring because I have slept for two hours only. Why? Excited. Curious. After almost two hours of flight, we reached Davao and immediately after we took our luggage, we saw Ate Alma with her husband Kuya Henry. Wow we thought Kuya Henry was his brother... Hehehehe We went straight to Ate Alma's house we eat our lunch then headed to Ate Alma's resort. It took us almost one hour or more to reach the place. And when we arrive there.... WOW as in WOW talaga... May sariling swimming pool si Ate Alma with runnning water without chlorine... The water is so cold and just acouple of minutes I immediately dived to the pool. Wow too much refreshing... Ang sarap ng feeling na maglublob sa malamig na tubig. Parang therapeutic ang spring water. Over flowing the pool. Aside from swimming pool, Ate Alma's resort also has a billiard table, a karaoke bar, a palaisdaan, a mini zoo with turtles, python and an indian turkey. Our dinner was fantastic and we the slept almost 12 midnight. We had a very good night sleep waking 6 in the morning. Roni was the first one to wake up and took a bath. I wanted to dip again in the pool but I can not take the cold water. Instead just took a shower and eat our breakfast. Hotdog, danggit, itlog na maalat with kamatis and a hot coffee was so delighted. We left Ate Alma's resort at 9:30 in the morning headed straight to Eden Resort. But when we reach the place it was raining. We waited for an hour but the rain did not stopped. Instead we went to SM Davao, eat our lunch and bought some toiletries. We went then to fruit market and bought suha. Me and Richard shipped 5 kilos of suha to Manila. We then headed to People's Park and took some pictures. People, children, lovers, families, flowers. In the evening, we eat our dinner at Jack's Ridge overlooking a night lighted city of Davao. Tomorrow, we are heading to Cagayan de Oro.

I Will Tell the Dean

This is the current scenario in one of the Colleges of Technology here in the Sultanate of Oman...

Scence No. 1

Student: Teacher, I want to repeat the quiz because I did not have good answers.

Teacher: I am sorry my student I dont repeat quizzes if your marks are low.

Student: Sure Mr? I will tell the Dean.

Teacher: Ok Ok Ok... When do you want to take the quiz? 

Scene No. 2

Teacher: Good morning class. Today we will have quiz.

Students: No Mister!!!!!!(Shouting) We did not study!!!!!

Teacher: I told you last meeting that we will have quiz on this day!!!!

Student: I did not study last night Mr. 

Teacher: Well then it is not my fault!

Student: Ok. Can I go now? I will go to the Dean!?!?!

Teacher: Ok Ok Ok When do you want the quiz?

These are few of the situations currentl and ongoing in the College. Students have power to remove Teachers, Head of Departments (Even an Omani Head of Department). The commulative grade point average to go to Diploma level from Certificate level have been lowered from 2.25 to 2.0. Students who have been dismissed from the College due to probation can go back and study again. Quality of teaching? Quality of learning? Quality Assurance? ($&%&#^$%&$^_@*$&#) Censored. No freedom of speech. Be silent. Think about your project in your country. As long as we are earning the currency, just swallow your pride. Just be close to students as what our new Head of Department told us. Give everything what they want. No questions asked. In other words, BE A SLAVE...

Rumor

There is an ongoing rumor that there will be a swap of deanship between Shinas and Musannah... If this is true what do you think of the outcome? Will it be good? Will it be beneficial to all concerned? Will it create a fair atmosphere among the stakeholders? (What's this, QA?) The power of the people. (I mean students) In one country in South East Asia, this power of the people revolutionized 25 years ago. What ever is the outcome of this rumor, I hope that it will build goodwill and friendship in the community. Are these the four way test? But I can not recall the other test... Celebrating? Not yet. Wait until the rumor becomes true. How fast the news flies... Wonderful. Exuberant.This is a rumor. It might not be true. Do not tell anyone. Keep it to yourself. No source of information. Just be silent. But why the letters are written in BOLD?

A Very Sad News

As I was driving on our way home, the Head of the Engineering Department called me. He was asking me about how the College was going, are there any students who came to the College today and I told him that we had a meeting with the Dean. The line was cut and when I arrived in my home we had a long chat on the phone. I told him what was the Dean's agenda since all the Lecturers and Staffs from three Departments were there. I told him that in one Department, the HoD have been transferred to the Ministry and then he told me he was also as well been transferred to the Ministry in Muscat. A shocking news from him which I think he doesn't deserve. The students who are complaining against him are not really the good students in the class.

What the HELL?!($&#&^^#&

Last week the Dean of the College call for a meeting for all Teaching and Technical Staff. He discussed the rules and regulations to be imposed to all the staff. He stressed that if someone wanted to take a leave from his duty he should ask permission by writing. Of course everybody do that. We can not simply leave  our post until the Head of the Department agrees. As part of the Teaching responsibility of the teaching staff he wanted to include the Quality Assurance. And other lots of blah blah blah...Most of the rules he laid out has been followed even from the previous administration. Complain against salary increase is none of his business. Complains of transportation coming to and going from the College is none of his business. But come to think of it. The College is far from the nearest city and most of the staff are staying in the city. A matter of consideration. Human heart. Humility. None of his business. I asked about why teachers should be given until 6 o'clock classes, he said this is the rule. The College should operate 8 in the morning till 8 in the night. Mmmmmmmmm. This is good. But where is the common sense? If classes can be handled and can be accommodated before 6 o'clock why not let the community suffer? When I asked this question, the Asst. Dean for Academics was upset at me. As I learned later on, this kind of question should not be brought up in the meeting. I was only asking. It is a crime to tell everyone the reason behind of putting classes classes when there are enough classrooms which can hold classes before 6 o'clock. Secondly... I suggested that as professionals, ETC should schedule their maintenance NOT during office hours or college operating hours. In their mind it was a complaint. I was not complaining about the services the ETC is offering but I am suggesting that ETC should shut down the NETWORK, when there are no classes, when people are not using the computer, when people are using the printer, when people are not using the College System... These are small things which lecturers are facing but these problems occur whenever the NETWORK is down. COMMON SENSE. Anyway, these sentiments are merely spoken for a reason that they are not listening at all. One thing I have learned from this. STOP. ENOUGH. Allah kareem....

Truth or Fact

Dictators in the world are now in trouble since people are revolting against their government. Tunisia, Egypt, Yemen, Bahrain, Libya, Morocco, Algeria and other Arab countries are now in the verge of people power revolution. The people of these countries are angry and wanted to have political reforms. Changing of constitutions, minorities should be represented in forming the government, rising of unemployment rate and the likes are the major issues the people wanted to change. But unlike these countries, people can revolt against their government. In one of the Colleges located somewhere in the world another kind of dictatorship is emerging.  Teachers, students and technicians must end their timings and classes at 6 o'clock in the evening even there are free rooms and the rooms are not even maximized. Quality Assurance are being done by the Lecturers which is not even part of the Duties and Responsibilities, having more than 50 Advisees, more than 20 hours of teaching load. What can you ask for more? Come to think of it. How many people in the world do not have jobs? How many people in the world can afford to live and sleep in a comfortable home? How many in the world can eat regular meals everyday? Count your blessings. Just keep in mind the CURRENCY you are receiving every month. Are you happy? Are you satisfied? Do you have other options? Whew!!!!!!!! When will I learn?

Who needs a "Thank you"?

Most of Filipino teachers in Shinas College of Technology, are having too much task aside from being a teacher. My main responsibility is to teach, and that is according to the By-Laws of the Ministry of Manpower. But the last duty and responsibility stated was "Any other task assigned by the Head of the Department"... A BIG DEAL. Can not say NO. In my more than 6 years of staying in Oman, did I ever heard of someone from my superiors "Job well done", "Good job", "Keep up the good work"... One time I was so dead tired of writing a report almost no sleep because we have to meet the deadline, the Dean of our College back then was an Iraqi. I was part of domain number two in QA and the Dean asked for the report of the Engineering. When he asked regarding tables and representations and description and summary of the report, a female teacher went to him to direct him where the dean can find what he was looking for in our report. After the Dean was satisfied of our report he made a comment "She is good" and that instant she was made the "Employee of the Month" even she did nothing on the report. But I never complained because God knows it was my work. I was assigned to formulate the schedule of the engineering department for both teachers and students for almost 4 years now. In my experience, no one ever told me "Hey you have done a great job". Instead, what I heard from my new HOD is that the Assistant Dean was not happy because of wrong projection of sections. we have 36 courses total from certificate, diploma and higher diploma levels. Out of this 36 courses, only 3 has courses have unbalanced registered students. The Assistant Dean concluded that I had a wrong projection. Three out of 36 is wrong projection. Did he ever say "Thank you for doing a great job". NEVER!!!!!!!!! Instead you made a mistake of making incorrect projection.

Thank You Muscat Beach Games

(From Left) George, Francis, Anet, Ronet and Jovy

As of yesterday my official duty as a Protocol Assistant for the 2nd Asian Beach Games here in the Sultanate of Oman ends. My client went home already going back to Korea. The four days of working as Protocol Assistant in a luxury hotel of Shangri-La was fantastic with a superb food and a breathtaking view of the Gulf of Oman. At the beginning I was a little bit scared of the road because not only it is zigzag but very steep as well. Wet hands and shaking knees was all I can say when I had my first trip going to the place. But as the days went through I was able to gain confidence on my driving and maneuvered the roads easily. I took lots of pictures which will be treasured from this journey but one thing I enjoyed the most is the food. A variety of choices, vegetables, chicken, potatoes, rice, noodles, breads, desserts, juices everything is overflowing. Three times a day, breakfast, lunch and dinner. I only stayed in the hotel enjoying and savoring every minute, I did not go to the venue of sports with my client, but instead I was able to finish my timetable work from the College while surfing the internet for free. I had some souvenirs and pins from other countries, (Excuse me Sir, do you have pins?) this was the pick up lines of Anet and Ronet. There were Filipinos as well who represented our Country and was able to chat with them for a short period of time. Everyone asked me "Where are you from?". I replied, "I was born in the Philippines and now I am a Canadian", in a slang pronunciation. Many of them I fooled and we all laughed together. Four days of fun. Four days of endless food, Four days of free internet (very very rare in Oman). Four days of excitement. I hope there will be another big international sporting event to be held here in Oman. Thank you Muscat Asian Beach Games Organizing Committee.

Salary

For some Filipino teachers they are very thankful and very grateful for they have been given an increase in their salary. There are some who have been decreased in their salary for reasons only the company knows. But what exactly is the basis of the Agencies in increasing the salary of the teachers? Are they fair in giving such salary increase? Do they evaluate the performance of the teachers? Does the Head of the Department or even the Dean of the College recommends teachers to be given a salary increase? In the case of Bahwan Cybertech, the teachers are "fighting" for their right to get salary increase. Teachers MUST go to their offices and talk to the owners of the company and can negotiate with their salary increase (by raising their voice to their employer?). If they are lucky, their company will give them increase. For Globnet on the other hand, they are not open for negotiations. You either sign your contract, otherwise you will not get your salary at all. The door is NOT open for negotiations telling their teachers "TAKE IT OR LEAVE IT". In fact, they even reduced the salary of their teachers by 30 Rials telling them this is for their gratuity. For CECNE, they gave 25 OMR salary increase to their teachers. The Ministry of Manpower is very active in implementing "QUALITY ASSURANCE" to all Colleges of Technology in the Sultanate. But what happen is far from reality in dealing with "STANDARDS" from among the Colleges. Teachers are supposed to have a standard salary, regardless of their agency. Next, there is a performance evaluation from the HODs, but what is the use of the evaluation if it does not reflect in salary negotiations. There are hard working teachers and there are teachers who just go to the college to sit in their chair and surf the internet. No advisories, no QA work, no responsibilities, just take 18 hours teaching load, that's it. Some even have less teaching hours. Not all Teachers have been given a lucky break.

In spite of all these blah blah blah for salary increase, what most teachers must do? Just want to share some unsolicited advice. Be content of what have been given to you and if you think the world is unfair of not giving you a salary increase, then go back to wherever you came from. The company has the right to do what ever they want and teachers are suppose to teach the students. Nothing more nothing less. Read the Ministry of Manpower By-Laws regarding Lecturer's duties and responsibilities and you might be wondering why you have many works aside from being a TEACHER. Read the last paragraph of the duties and responsibilities and you will know why Teachers are loaded with too much work. On the other hand, where else you can get the amount of salary you are receiving now as compared to what you have back home? Three times higher of what you are receiving now. Be thankful of every blessings you received. Be grateful to His Majesty for giving us the opportunity to be here in Oman. Be honest with your work and do good deeds to other people and whatever sacrifices you have, God will bless you as you make a difference in the lives of your students.

Getting To Know My Omani Students

The first day of my class in Computer Programming was setting rules in the lab. Students were very attentive, curious and might be asking themselves "What would be my mark from this teacher?" or "Shall I pass in this class?". Questions like these are very common for all my students. Either in certificate or diploma level.  Upon giving them lectures on Introduction to C Language, there lies ahead the usual problem. "Please repeat teacher". "I don't understand teacher." "Can you give another example Mr.?" I taught my students how to fixed errors after compiling their program. The very first error we encountered was "Unable to create output file "noname.obj". To fixed this error I simply told them "Save your file. Every time you have this error just SAVE YOUR FILE". Second exercise, I let them write their own program. ALT + F9. Error. Unable to create output file. "Teacher!!!!" shout one student. "I HAVE ERROR". I asked, "What is your error?". The student replied, "I DONT KNOW MISTER!!!!!!!!!". I tried to compose myself, keeping my cool, spending my INFINITE PATIENCE... "Shabab, do you know how to read? If you have error in your program what will I do with your error? I will drink or eat your error?" "NO MISTER.... But i can not run my program because I have error." I asked, "What does the message says?". "Mister it says here - UNABLE TO CREATE OUTPUT FILE" ... I wanted to crushed the computer but instead I just smiled. Typical Filipino teacher doesn't get easily irritated by students inattentive behavior in the class. As a Vincentian Teacher, it is great that I have this virtue in my life. It was just one example on how I deal with my students. It might be the same experience for another Filipino teacher in different colleges of technology here in Oman. Lucky for me, my students have tolerable behavior. Are they afraid of me? I don't think so. I earned their respect as I am teaching them not only professional skills but as well as personal skills. One rule that I gave to them is put in their heart and mind the GOLDEN RULE... "Learn to say.... THANK YOU.... PLEASE.... and EXCUSE ME"... Until now, they do...

New Dean and Administrators

For a while we were anxious during our first day of reporting to the college for the fact that there will be changes in the College Administrators. We have a new Dean who came from Ibra College of Technology. His name is Dr. Qasim. We also have a new Asst. Dean for Academic Affairs and his name is Dr. Ali. We also have a new Asst. Dean for Administration and I am sorry to say that up to now I was not able to meet him personally and know his name. It has been three weeks but until now most of the College personnel have not met these Administrators and were not formally introduced to all the staff in the College. I may not be an administrator but I guess it is only proper to introduce themselves so that when we meet them at least we can greet them and say some words to them. On the other hand, classes have started already and last Wednesday there was no electricity in the College. It is really ironic that people who wanted to do some work in the college are not doing it either after classes or during the weekend. They do not  mind if there are no electricity in the college and ask to continue to hold classes in spite of sweating inside a dark caravan or workshop. As a Lecturer, what we can do is to follow these instructions otherwise we might be reprimanded and it might cause termination of our services. What about students? I have normally an average of 27 students per class. This is common to all classes in the entire college. We have sometimes teaching more than 20 hours where according to the Ministry of Manpower By-Laws should take a maximum of 18 hours. We have other tasks assigned to us, like Quality Assurance, Student Advisory which reaches up to 60 students, preparing lessons, marking quizzes and examinations, student project and other tasks assigned by our Head of Department. The salary of the teachers are not equal, where the English Lecturers receives more salary than the specialization Lecturers, Bahwan Staff members likewise receives more salary than their counterparts, Globnet decreased the salary of their employees saying, TAKE IT OR LEAVE IT and is not open for negotiations for the salary and the only agency that holds the passports of their employees, CECNE paid only half of the September month salary of the Lecturers but upon complaining to the Ministry on this matter, reversed their decision and paid the other half month salary of the Teachers. There are no standard level of salary, evaluation, increment of salary from among these agencies but rather making rules on their own and staff should obey otherwise if they are not satisfied, they can leave. AUTHORITATIVE... Another requirement of the Ministry is that only the so called "NATIVE SPEAKERS" can teach English Language. In my opinion, there are teachers from the land of the so called "native speakers" who are indeed very very good in the language. But when it comes to work like teaching the students on technical writing and technical communication, the so called native speakers can not even write one whole paragraph. Their grammars are not correct, the punctuations and the words used do not coincide with the thought of the subject. I may not be a native speaker of the english language but I can do better than them. (This is my own opinion.) So please better change this concept of hiring native speakers but rather hire the real "TEACHERS" who knows english whether it is by listening, reading, and most of all WRITING.

For A Start

It has been a while since the Sultanate of Oman had started to hire Filipino Teachers to teach ESL, Engineering, IT, Business and Applied Science courses in this oil rich nation. Many have tried and much to their surprise, Oman is a very peaceful country that has high regards to Teachers regardless of religion, gender, educational attainment and in fact sexual orentation. Filipinos Teachers are well regarded as professional in dealing with their work, hardworking and an infinite patience with the Omani students. This blog is dedicated to all Filipino Teachers teaching in the Colleges and Universities in the sultanate of Oman