I support the argument you have presented in your editorial Statistics don't tell the whole story (March 11). Savings really depend on what kind of job you have, your living expenses, where you came from and what kind of life you had before. Let's not generalise. At the end of the day, all of us expatriates come to the UAE for the opportunity and to earn more money and save for the future. If you can't make this work, why stay?
Rajane Serao, Dubai
House rents are extremely high (High living costs force half of expats to consider leaving UAE, March 9).
Also, good schools are very expensive. These are the fixed costs that you cannot change or influence if you live in Dubai with your family.
Kanan Jafarov, Dubai
This situation is not unique to the UAE. The whole world is facing this crisis. But if the situation worsens, it is not a bad idea to go back home.
Daniel Lemma, Abu Dhabi
Arabic: we need to teach the teachers
Ayesha Almazroui's opinion piece If we want to keep Arabic alive, don't blame English (March 9) hit the mark in so many ways.
It is true that young Arab children have many distractions that keep them from focusing on the Arabic language. However, much of the problem must lie with the teaching of Arabic.
Whether it is Arabic as a first or second language, the fact is that the authorities concerned with developing curriculums have not done enough to promote the language. And teachers use the same teaching methods that were used when they learnt Arabic at school.
Why is it, when ADEC and KHDA are investing so heavily in education, that no one has set up an Arabic teacher training college? It could employ those who know about the art of language teaching to train a new generation of Arabic language teachers. In this way, hundreds of dynamic, creative teachers could be in classrooms in public and private schools in the UAE.
Name withheld by request
Time to discuss entry test issue
Thank you for the wonderful article Warning on entry tests for pupils (March 11). It's about time that this subject is discussed. Our son did just such an assessment at a primary school in Dubai about two months ago. He was taken by "strangers" into a room for the so called assessment. When he came out, he was visibly scared.
The teacher felt that the boy did not understand her and that’s why he did not do well enough in English.
A couple days later, we received a letter from the school informing us that he had not passed. No further comment was made.
Our son is three-and-a-half and very advanced in almost everything. He started playing golf when he was 18 months old. He is well spoken and sometimes a bit shy, especially when he meets strangers for the first time. His first language is English, but he also knows a bit of German and Hungarian. His first-year report from the Emirates British Nursery could not have been better.
C Pertl, Dubai
It’s sad that Dubai schools continue to interview pupils for kindergarten and Grade 1 admissions, even though Abu Dhabi banned this practice in 2013.
I feel that some of those who conduct these interviews are not always as bright as the children they assess.
Irshad Valli, Dubai
Happy that UAE will host Asia Cup
Congratulation to the UAE Football Association for unanimously winning the right to host the AFC Asian Cup in 2019 (UAE wins the right to host 2019 Asian Cup, March 10). I am sure the UAE as hosts will do a great job, as well as being highly competitive on the field. It will also no doubt be a very popular tournament for the ever growing Australian expatriate population here (there are about 16,000 residents and more than 300,000 tourists visit the UAE annually) to support the Socceroos as defending champions.
Pablo Kang, Ambassador of Australia to the UAE and Qatar
