Author: Edu Alliance Group Journal

Edu Alliance is a higher education consultancy firm with offices in the United States and the United Arab Emirates. The founders, Dean Hoke & Dr. Senthil Nathan and its advisory members have assisted higher education institutions on a variety of projects, and many have held senior positions in higher education in the United States and internationally. Dean Hoke who serves as publisher of the Journal has an extensive background in the fields of higher education, broadcasting and community relations. He held a number of senior higher education administration posts in the UAE, USA as well as Co-Founder of of a online educational service corporation for educational institutions. He served as CEO of three public broadcasting television stations and a international broadcasting television network. He has a B.A. from Urbana University and an M.S. from the University of Louisville. He also a graduate of the Executive Management Program at The Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania.
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Funding Dilemma for UAE Federal Higher Education Institutions

During the past week the reporters at the National have written a series of articles about the state of education in the UAE. This is the second year where The National has focused on education its challenges and presenting possible solutions. In particular I would like to focus on the freeze on higher education funding.

Melanie Swan in a June 23rd article titled “Universities to start year with Dh428m funds shortfall” reported the folowing:

The Ministry of Finance has submitted a budget to Cabinet that will give the universities less than their entitlement under a formula drawn up by the Ministry of Higher Education and Scientific Research in 2008.

Worst hit will be the Higher Colleges of Technology (HCT), the largest with 17 campuses, which will be short Dh333m, or 25.8 per cent .

Zayed University will be Dh32m, or 8 per cent, below its calculated figure. United Arab Emirates University, the leading federal institution in terms of research, will be short Dh63m, or 4.5 per cent. Sources at the universities say the amount has been calculated without consultation. They say places may have to be cut, campuses closed and courses decreased as the number of teachers cannot meet the growing number of students.

The funding required by HCT is based on its 19,000 students in the 2010-2011 year. The cut comes as the number of students is expected to grow in October by 3,000. “I don’t know how we’ll cope if we don’t get more financial support,” one academic said. “We are already stretched … we’re running out of space and numbers will be unmanageable if something isn’t done soon.”

Since 2009, sources say, there have been more than 20 meetings between officials from the Ministry of Finance, Ministry of Presidential Affairs and Ministry of Higher Education and Scientific Research, to try to resolve the funding formula issues.

In 2008, the Cabinet approved a student-based funding model to help universities plan resources, with a higher education co-ordinating council (HECC) to run the system.

The Ministry of Finance, the Ministry of Presidential Affairs and the HECC agreed the model would be updated every two to three years.

In December 2009, the Cabinet approved total funding of Dh2.5 billion based on its funding formula. This, say university sources, was the last time it was fully applied. In 2009-2010, the amount submitted by the Ministry of Finance was about Dh140m less than requested by the Minister for Higher Education and approved by the Cabinet.

“There are so many ministries involved that it makes decision-making very complicated,” a government source said. “The Ministry of Finance wants semester-based funding but the institutions do it on an annual basis and incur annual costs.”

As you can see HCT will have the greatest challenge in making the budget. They have little choice but to provide a seat for every student which means up to 22,000 may enter the upcoming term. While HCT & others can and should make the entire operation more efficient which would save some money, it does not seem reasonable they can provide a quality level of instruction with less money.

What alternatives do institutions like HCT have when funding is not sufficient?  Perhaps close campuses in the rural Western Region to save some money. This is of course not fair to the students who live in the region and in all likelihood would not go to college. Perhaps, increase the student/teacher ratio from 16 or 20 to 1, to a 25 or 30 to 1. This method dilutes the ability of faculty to work closely with first year & second year students who are mostly not prepared for higher ed courses & would increase the drop-out rate. Another method is to deferred admission of thousands of freshman until the January 2012 term begins and they can fill in the slots of the students who dropped out. This option can be used but again the game plan to be successful means you would hope students fail or drop out due to lack of encouragement & guidance. It also means many students will becoming disenchanted and not go to college.

The federal higher education institutions provide higher/further education for nearly 40,000 Emirati’s. They will be the majority of the next generation workforce. It is difficult for the private, health, & education sector to find UAE National employees (especially men) at this juncture in history. Budget cuts or freezes further adds to the dilemma.

The UAE correctly has stated, it will move to a knowledge based economy in the upcoming years, yet with funding freezes in higher ed it seems this goal will not be achieved. By all means encourage and implement steps to improve the efficiency of the three federal institutions. Look at ways where they can save money via co-op buy educational products, better use of multi-casting & video conferencing to reduce travel and re-deploy staff. Maybe fewer extravagant events will help save cash & I’m sure there are other ways. However, fully fund the formula program designed in 2008 which would improve the quality of education and reduce drop-outs.  Don’t take the same path many states in the USA are currently taking in order to balance the budget. They are damaging  their future.

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Are Mystery Shoppers Really the Way to Improve Customer Service in the UAE?

I am amazed how poor customer service is in the UAE. Perhaps it’s because I am an American and I have set my standards too high.

A news story this summer about expat customers in the MENA region state that a survey concluded Americans have the highest expectations while citizens of India and Pakistan have much lower expectations. This may be the case, yet a vast majority of expats, no matter what the country, complain about overall service from telephone companies to retail stores in the UAE.
Senior management of these establishments are well aware of the continuous public complaints about indifferent clerks, the inability to deliver or repair an item or return or make an exchange of a product.

Solution, the Mystery Shopper!
The Mystery Shopper is very popular in the UAE and is according to Wikipedia “Mystery shopping was standard practice by the early 1940s as a way to measure employee integrity. Tools used for mystery shopping assessments range from simple questionnaires to complete audio and video recordings. Mystery shopping can be used in any industry, with the most common venues being retail stores, hotels, movie theaters, restaurants, fast food chains, banks, gas stations, car dealerships, apartments, health clubs and health care facilities.”
Mystery shoppers pose as customers in which they perform specific tasks, purchasing a product, asking questions, registering complaints or behaving in a certain way – and then provide detailed reports or feedback about their experiences. Once the report is given to management it is up to them to determine next steps.
In a June 4, 2010 article in The National reported there are thousands of mystery shoppers who “scour banks, shops and hotels across the Emirates every hour of every day, clandestinely monitoring the level of service offered to customers. It’s a service that has become crucial for companies vying for customer loyalty, in a world where people are watching what they spend and where they spend it.”
The article goes to state secret shoppers are “on the front lines, collecting the information and data that’s crucial to understanding the confusing retail and banking landscape.”
With this army of secret shoppers, untold numbers of reports are presented to highly educated members of management. Why is customer service still so poor across all industries?
Well, there are many studies and articles on how to improve customer service but I think the Kipp Report (The Middle East’s first online-only business magazine) states it best in there June 6, 2010 blog “Mystery shoppers? Let Kipp save you the bother:
“Kipp doesn’t think retailers need to invest too much money in hiring mystery shoppers, at least, not yet. Mystery shoppers are an incisive tool aimed at perfecting service in a mature and competent retail market. They can help bring excellence in a retail market of high standards. Here in the UAE, that’s a total waste.

Here’s what retailers need to know: Your customer service levels are, by and large, terrible. There are no strengths, and improvement can be made in every single area. The average customer’s opinion of the shopping experience is that it is a horrific trial of patience and endurance where the staff adds little or no value and the only redeeming aspect is the product.”
Kipp suggest four very basic ideas of which I believe point third is crucial.
1. TRAIN your staff so they know about the products they are selling. Why? It will help them sell more and it will be useful to the customer.
2. TRAIN your staff that following people around a store or hovering next to them constantly is not service, it’s stalking.
3. EMPOWER your staff to work on their initiative, so they could open an extra till when a queue builds up, for instance.
4. MORE does not equal better. Dozens of staff in one store does not equal good service (see point 1) particularly when they can’t follow point 3.
In my conversions with store managers and owners they believe the most effective method to improve customer service is to find the staff that are preforming below par, and weed them out. In some cases fire them, others yell, shame or discipline the staff member so they understand what they are doing wrong. In my years as a executive, I learned quickly it is management’s responsibility to properly train staff to know their products, how to work with customers, and to empower a staff member as much as reasonably possible to take the lead and find ways to solve the problem. This is not done by scaring the staff.
You can have a million secret shoppers but until proper training and empowerment by management and owners is put in place customer service will not improve. I’ll state the obvious, the happier the customer the more likely they are to return to your store and buy again. It is much more cost effective than slick ads or additional employees. Get more employees when you have more customers and do some training!