Higher Colleges

The Higher Colleges of Technology refers to the network of government schools that encompasses 13 different campuses across the U.A.E. It is free for Emirati nationals to attend. They only thing that each student is required to buy is a tablet computer. Even though that in itself isn't cheap, being the only thing a student has to purchase makes it a pretty good deal.

While the Higher Colleges of Technology may be throughout all of the UAE and not just in Abu Dhabi, the first campus opened 22 years ago was Abu Dhabi Men's College, the school I work for. As far as I've been told, it's the flagship school of the Higher Colleges of technology. If you're a foreign dignitary, businessman, or academic and visiting the capital of the U.A.E., you're going to get a tour of my school. As one of my co-workers put it to me: After showing people the Emirates Palace Hotel and the Zayed Grand Mosque, what else are they going to see?

There really are a lot of amazing facilities here accessible by the students. The library has whole rows of computers, a huge plasma-screen TV, mini sound booth-like chairs for watching DVDs, and a Starbucks right in the library. If that's not enough to impress foreign dignitaries, I don't know what is.