Shaikh AbdullaUAE
From the lab bench. To the front of the class.
Leaving the lab bench for a GCSE classroom.
- Now
- Fixed teacher and lead lab technician at a school in the UAE
- Teaches
- Key Stage 4, GCSE classes
- Before
- Lead lab technician, with medical degrees up to a PhD
- Programme
- PgCTL
Abdulla had built a medical career up to a doctorate, but UAE schools require a teaching qualification and a B.Ed meant starting two more years of study. A UK-recognised teaching diploma made him a fixed teacher at his school instead of only its lead lab technician.
Every degree except one.
Shaikh Abdulla’s qualifications are all in one field. “I have completed bachelor’s, master’s, diploma in all medical fields,” he says, and he has now finished a PhD as well. At the school where he works, he was the lead lab technician.
Teaching there was a different matter. Schools in the UAE that follow a British or American syllabus still have to meet the criteria of the government of the country they are in, he says, and as he understands those criteria, a teacher needs a diploma in education or at least a B.Ed to be approved. He had just heard that Sharjah was about to ask its teachers for a diploma alongside their bachelor’s degree too. After a run of medical degrees, a B.Ed was the one route he was not willing to take.
Fixed teacher, Key Stage 4.
He chose PgCTL instead. He describes it as a certificate recognised internationally, and as a programme that can be completed in ten months by teachers who, like him, do not have a B.Ed. He saw it as “a strong additional qualification which will go along with my PhD”, and as something that would help him stay stable at his school.
It did more than that. “Three weeks ago I have been taken as a fixed teacher in my school, not only being a lead lab technician, on the basis of my PgCTL,” he says. He now teaches Key Stage 4, GCSE classes. He counts it among his achievements.
One of the achievements that I have achieved all because of having a PgCTL, which wouldn’t have been done only with a medical degree.
