ABU DHABI // Their friends wonder why they do not want to be engineers or lawyers. They are asked how they cope with classes of 30 naughty children. They are asked, "Why you?"
Because, they say, they feel a calling. And because they believe they can make a difference.
"For people who want to be teachers, it's not about the money; it comes from inside," said Abdulrahman Ali al Attas.
Male Emiratis make up just 11.3 per cent of teachers in the emirate's government schools. And that percentage may get smaller before it gets bigger.
Mr al Attas is one of just six male students alongside 200 females in years one and two at the Emirates College of Advanced Education (ECAE) in Abu Dhabi, the only dedicated teacher-training institute in the country. He is studying to be a primary teacher and is in the second year of a four-year programme.
From the weeks spent as student teachers at government schools, the men can already see the advantages for children.
"Children like to follow the male more than the female," said Fahad al Hosani, 21. "The role model at home is the father more than the mother and he controls the children. Children don't concentrate so much on the female teachers. It's easier to discipline for a male."
According to the Abu Dhabi Education Council (Adec), only 486 male Emiratis are teachers in government schools, versus 3,823 females. For expatriate teachers, the trend is reversed. There are 3,764 men and 2,685 women.
The major benefit of having Emirati men in the classroom is a "better understanding of the pupils and local culture", said Ahmed al Busaeedi, 20. He said primary education is "the most important stage" for a child, laying the foundations for the future.
"When I stood in front of the class, I could feel they respected me," he said. "They looked up to me. Even beyond the teaching, if something's bothering them at home or at school, they feel they can trust you and talk to you, tell you their problems."
ECAE has provided training to 600 mostly female Emirati teachers since its establishment in 2007.
Ian Haslam, the vice chancellor at ECAE, said that he suspects school systems all over the world would like to see more men teaching at the primary level.
"Data indicates that 15 per cent seems to be a good target for education systems in knowledge-based economies," he said. "At various times some systems slip to as low as nine per cent and move to as high as 18.
"The first thing the college would like to do is to recruit more male students to its initial teacher-training programme. But more importantly, for the future of teaching and learning, is to be able to recruit as diverse a teaching population as we can."
A subsidiary of Adec, the ECAE is one of the instruments being used to draw Emiratis into teaching.
Students spend 23 hours in the classroom each week and at least three months a year working in the field. Prospective teachers seem to agree that classroom discipline is their biggest challenge, followed by meeting the needs of different levels and abilities in a class of 30 pupils.
"I've really had to learn patience," Mr al Hosani said. "You have to keep the children busy all the time. Otherwise they're standing on tables, throwing things at each other."
Saeed al Ameri said advances in technology have enabled teachers to be more creative; they can use film, music and visual tools such as PowerPoint presentations.
Mr al Hosani said change is needed in government schools, citing old buildings and poor facilities.
The six male students, who are from Abu Dhabi, agree that if training institutions like ECAE existed in other parts of the country, more Emiratis would become teachers.
Mr al Ameri said: "There must be more incentives and opportunities, like there are in the police or the army."
mswan@thenational.ae
Farasan Boat: 128km Away from Anchorage
Director: Mowaffaq Alobaid
Stars: Abdulaziz Almadhi, Mohammed Al Akkasi, Ali Al Suhaibani
Rating: 4/5
If you go
Where to stay: Courtyard by Marriott Titusville Kennedy Space Centre has unparalleled views of the Indian River. Alligators can be spotted from hotel room balconies, as can several rocket launch sites. The hotel also boasts cool space-themed decor.
When to go: Florida is best experienced during the winter months, from November to May, before the humidity kicks in.
How to get there: Emirates currently flies from Dubai to Orlando five times a week.
Attacks on Egypt’s long rooted Copts
Egypt’s Copts belong to one of the world’s oldest Christian communities, with Mark the Evangelist credited with founding their church around 300 AD. Orthodox Christians account for the overwhelming majority of Christians in Egypt, with the rest mainly made up of Greek Orthodox, Catholics and Anglicans.
The community accounts for some 10 per cent of Egypt’s 100 million people, with the largest concentrations of Christians found in Cairo, Alexandria and the provinces of Minya and Assiut south of Cairo.
Egypt’s Christians have had a somewhat turbulent history in the Muslim majority Arab nation, with the community occasionally suffering outright persecution but generally living in peace with their Muslim compatriots. But radical Muslims who have first emerged in the 1970s have whipped up anti-Christian sentiments, something that has, in turn, led to an upsurge in attacks against their places of worship, church-linked facilities as well as their businesses and homes.
More recently, ISIS has vowed to go after the Christians, claiming responsibility for a series of attacks against churches packed with worshippers starting December 2016.
The discrimination many Christians complain about and the shift towards religious conservatism by many Egyptian Muslims over the last 50 years have forced hundreds of thousands of Christians to migrate, starting new lives in growing communities in places as far afield as Australia, Canada and the United States.
Here is a look at major attacks against Egypt's Coptic Christians in recent years:
November 2: Masked gunmen riding pickup trucks opened fire on three buses carrying pilgrims to the remote desert monastery of St. Samuel the Confessor south of Cairo, killing 7 and wounding about 20. IS claimed responsibility for the attack.
May 26, 2017: Masked militants riding in three all-terrain cars open fire on a bus carrying pilgrims on their way to the Monastery of St. Samuel the Confessor, killing 29 and wounding 22. ISIS claimed responsibility for the attack.
April 2017: Twin attacks by suicide bombers hit churches in the coastal city of Alexandria and the Nile Delta city of Tanta. At least 43 people are killed and scores of worshippers injured in the Palm Sunday attack, which narrowly missed a ceremony presided over by Pope Tawadros II, spiritual leader of Egypt Orthodox Copts, in Alexandria's St. Mark's Cathedral. ISIS claimed responsibility for the attacks.
February 2017: Hundreds of Egyptian Christians flee their homes in the northern part of the Sinai Peninsula, fearing attacks by ISIS. The group's North Sinai affiliate had killed at least seven Coptic Christians in the restive peninsula in less than a month.
December 2016: A bombing at a chapel adjacent to Egypt's main Coptic Christian cathedral in Cairo kills 30 people and wounds dozens during Sunday Mass in one of the deadliest attacks carried out against the religious minority in recent memory. ISIS claimed responsibility.
July 2016: Pope Tawadros II says that since 2013 there were 37 sectarian attacks on Christians in Egypt, nearly one incident a month. A Muslim mob stabs to death a 27-year-old Coptic Christian man, Fam Khalaf, in the central city of Minya over a personal feud.
May 2016: A Muslim mob ransacks and torches seven Christian homes in Minya after rumours spread that a Christian man had an affair with a Muslim woman. The elderly mother of the Christian man was stripped naked and dragged through a street by the mob.
New Year's Eve 2011: A bomb explodes in a Coptic Christian church in Alexandria as worshippers leave after a midnight mass, killing more than 20 people.
