I recently wrote about Bahrain Polytechnic’s advertisement for tutor positions. The human resources manager have just replied my email. I’m pleased that they did, and that my comment did not go unnoticed.

Thank you for the email you sent to our web address recently.  Your points were noted and we changed the wording on our documentation immediately.  I can assure you there was no intention to offend or discriminate.  I can also assure you that despite the wording, we have received applications and made appointments that encompass a wide range of nationalities. The fact that we have many different nationalities on our staff is a reflection of our recruitment practice.

Today the Tutor advertisement was taken off the web to give us the opportunity to finish processing the 100s of applications we have been fortunate enough to receive. We would, however, still welcome your application. If you require an application form please let me know.

I really came to discover this term very recently. During my trip to Chicago I was invited to a family dinner by a really nice local family who worked in Chicago Public Schools. The father had started to learn Arabic and was reading translated Arabic poetry.  It was a pleasant night, and we came to talk about education in Bahrain. He asked if we had Madrasahs.  I said we sure did, quite surprised at the question, but he was surprised in return.

He asked if I’ve ever been to one, and confusion was sweeping over me. I reassured him that I did, and pointed out that illiteracy was not a problem in Bahrain: almost everyone goes to school, girls included. The topic was still not dropped, as he asked what exactly was taught in madrasahs, and whether we had the chance to study anything apart from Islam and the holly scripts. I looked up, still confused, partly shocked, half-realizing what exactly was going on.

“Sir, I went to a public school, a government-run public school, not a religious one. We did science, mathematics, some history and geography, but all in Arabic. We did English as a second language and we once a week had an Islamic education class which students did not take seriously”.

With this, there was a sense of relief from everyone. I did not point out what caused the miscommunication, and we went on to discuss why students did not take that class seriously.

After that incident I realized how widespread the term was- it was everywhere. As a matter of fact it is no longer written with a capital M. It’s written with a small letter m, a proper term in the English dictionary that  is in short used to describe religious, terrorism-breeding schools  .  The word, a derivative of the route “daras”, meaning “to study”, in the mind of an Arabic-speaking person simply means the place of study, that is, school. It’s a secular term, subscribing itself to no particular religion or  political agenda.

I recounted the details of what happened to a Columbian friend, who laughed, and shared his bit of language malfunction: once on a trip to Louisiana he asked a Mexican (in Spanish) the directions to take a certain bus. He later on found out that “taking a bus” the way he chose to say it then- which was perfectly alright in Columbian Spanish- meant having intercourse with the bus to Mexican ears.

Bahrain Polytechnic's Ad

Qualifications
• a recognized qualification in tertiary teaching;
• ENGLISH tutors must have a recognised qualification in teaching English for speakers of other languages;
• a relevant technical specialist qualification or a bachelors degree (minimum);
• a native speaker of English with excellent communication skills in English, both verbal and written;

I came across a very disturbing advertisement for tutoring posts in Bahrain Polytechnic. The Advertisement was for multiple tutoring vacancies in subjects ranging from Accounting to Electro Technology for degree-level students, and I found it really shocking that they would blatantly state that “Native speakers will be given preference” on the website, and reiterate that in the application document under “Qualifications”.

There are way too many things that are wrong with this I’m not sure where to start. First I’m unsure how being a native English speaker is a “Qualification” as such. Fluency and good command in English are things that can be thought of as qualifications, but a person’s mother tongue?

Second, I have absolutely no idea what being a native English speaker can possibly add to an Accounting, Mechanical Engineering, IT or Marketing tutors, and would really love to hear the insights from the Polytechnic about maybe revolutionary studies that they came across that shows that successful, renowned higher education institutions only hire“native English speakers”, in a country, I shall add, where English is commonly spoken yet remains a second language for most?

I tried to look at this from so many ways to make it look less disturbing or put a positive spin on it but I just couldn’t. They could have easily demanded good command of English, fluency, had proper criteria to measure or quantify that, and even if “native” was their shortcut into all of this I don’t think it’s acceptable. It is offensive, to my “non-native English speaking” Bahraini self and others.

I wrote to the Polytechnic, I don’t know if my email would mean anything, especially in terms of actual change of recruitment policy, but I sure hope they get the message that, despite English being my second language, I sure can manage to articulate how I feel about their advertisement.