Academics in the state of Qatar has recently embarked on a new experiment (Note:Qatar as a whole is an experiment) If I may first start with VCU, a females only design school and an alternative to the "out-of-date" higher education institutions present at the time. VCU taught women to think critically and to contribute to their society, yet if you go and meet many of its graduates today, you will hear them talk of the disappointment they faced upon graduation. For they realized their country wasn't prepared (and still isn't) to absorb them in the work force, the work force that is dominated by non-Qataris. Many of them today work in fields that don't relate to their degrees, and there are very few that have succeeded in holding appropriate positions, but those few can do little to life the spirit of the others.The second experiment was forced onto Qatar University, when it was obliged to compete with the Qatar Foundation universities (e.g. VCU). QU aimed to make Qatari females speak english as though it was their mother tongue; whatever you wanted to major in you had to speak English. Today almost all departments at Qatar University instruct in English.. and Just now I recognized that Qatar university's website is actually in English, maybe that's why they needed the Toefal huh? Anyhow, this step led to a high drop-out rates and suspensions from the university. Many of these students (that were superb students at high school) were forced to stay home, when they realized that all of the alternative universities were mixed (including VCU today).Finally, a very important experiment that needs a whole e-mail, is independent schools. To touch on the influence of independent schools and woman in the field of academics, a person needs to recognize first that Qatari women have always loved the position of a teacher. Yet this has been changed by the implementation of independent schools that has no appreciation to those dedicated women that spent, in some cases, all their professional life teaching in public schools which didn't pay them enough! Today these females fear nothing more than being employed in a independent schools, and many of them have already left the education field (when I find statistics on this I shall share them with you). Independent schools have come to ask more of those dedicated woman, ask them to join workshops (and so many other things) that some teacher have described to me as humiliating and insulting to a person that has been teaching for so long.To sum things up, the qatari female is faced today with so many obstacles in the field of education, she is not able to reach her full potential because of restrictions such as language barrier. This is only a brief description of the problems one can see, I might sound bias, but lets leave the other side of this debate for our loyal newspapers.
E.
