High rents threaten academic standards

With the start of the new term looming, universities are struggling to recruit quality staff due to high rents in the country. Top-flight academics have turned down job offers over concerns that much of their salary would be spent on accommodation and the disappointing response threatens academic standards as the higher education sector prepares for major expansion.

As reported in The National, rents in Abu Dhabi have surged 49 per cent in the past year, while Dubai has seen a 22 per cent increase on the back of heavy rises in previous years. At universities that do not provide accommodation to staff, a junior lecturer typically receives an annual housing allowance of Dh80,000 in addition to a salary of Dh150,000. Yet figures for the second quarter of this year provided by property services firm Asteco show a good-quality one-bedroom apartment costs an average of Dh134,000 in Dubai and Dh127,200 in Abu Dhabi, meaning staff may have to spend much of their main salary on accommodation.

Institutions that provide staff with accommodation are also facing difficulties caused by the acute shortage of properties. Professor Ashly Pinnington, dean of the faculty of business at the British University in Dubai (BUiD), based in Knowledge Village, said: "I've had direct experience of a number of high-calibre academics, some who actually come from the Gulf region but are working in the UK or the US or Australia, people we wanted to recruit, and the overall package has been perceived as not favourable.

"They can very quickly ask friends or go on the web and find that [the cost of] a one-bedroom or two-bedroom flat is much higher than they would pay in their home country. "It makes it much more difficult to attract the people we want here. It's a real problem. We have made offers to people. Some have come and some haven't." Accommodation allowances are rarely ring-fenced, so staff can keep what remains if their rent is less than the allowance, but have to pay from their own pocket if it exceeds the allowance.

Problems could increase in future as many institutions plan large-scale expansion, while new ones will open as the UAE establishes itself as a higher education international "destination". This year several universities are opening in Dubai International Academic City and Abu Dhabi while a US$1 billion (Dh3.67bn) education park housing 15 institutions is planned for Ras al Khaimah and New York University will open a campus on Saadiyat Island in 2010.

With their student admissions up by nearly a quarter this year, the federal universities are also likely to take on more staff. Dr Raed Awamleh, director of Middlesex University Dubai, said: "Some people have made decisions, based on the housing situation, not to join universities in the UAE. It has been difficult." David Thomas, director of corporate services at the Abu Dhabi Vocational Educational Training Institute, said: "It's a fact of life in Abu Dhabi," adding the government was "committed" to housing staff.

Professor Pinnington said he hoped the expansion at Dubai International Academic City, to which BUiD hopes to move, would serve as a magnet to good-quality staff and ease the effect of rents on recruitment. "We will have a bigger cluster of universities and more staff and students, and that will make more people think of coming to live in Abu Dhabi and Dubai," he said. @Email:dbardsley@thenational.ae