The lasting allure of academia

Teaching at the university level carry with it rewards beyond those of a monetary kind

Dr John Taylor, one of the faculty members recruited from the United States of America, teaches a class at the American University of Ras Al Khaimah. Antonie Robertson / The National

Let’s be frank, people don’t go into academia for the money. It’s not investment banking. Indeed, it’s hard to imagine how someone might decide to devote their life to the study of, for example, semiotics – something to do with “signs” and how they affect our interpretation of language and culture (we think) – because of money. Instead, it has to do with interest. And for the best academics, really deep interest and talent. Academia can be quite rewarding in and of itself (the bickering over apparently esoteric matters notwithstanding). You enter the profession because you can’t imagine anything else you’d want to do.

Last week, the Federal National Council was told that fewer than 1 in 10 instructors at public universities and colleges are Emirati. While the FNC is exploring ways to increase remuneration in the university systems for Emirati teachers to attract recruits, there is something much more appealing on offer than financial compensation.

For one, academics are free to pursue their interests in a relatively unencumbered manner. Of course, there are targets and benchmarks that must be met – such as publishing in learned journals. But it is difficult to conceive of a similar level of intellectual freedom in other career paths.

There is also an incredibly persuasive component to teaching that shouldn’t be overlooked: the pleasure of teaching good students. Why? Because good students challenge you to think beyond your comfort zone. They cause you to reconsider accepted ideas through the impertinence of their youthful questioning. So, might not the best way of rewarding our academics and encouraging more Emiratis to join their ranks be to rededicate our efforts to improve education all round?

We are not so naive as to think that academics don’t need to be paid enough or fairly: poor pay in many universities in the West has forced a great number to abandon what they enjoy most. But while we all need to consider how much we need to live the life we want, we don’t choose that life only because of the money. If we support our universities to become among the top in the world, they will create a community that many would seek to join.