This emptiness won't let me live without you (The Four Tops)

I’m cream-crackered from a hectic couple of weeks of frenzied interruption fuelled work on bureaucratic paperwork. And it’s only Wednesday (i.e. another day to go before the weekend and a trip to Dubai Mall to buy some earphones for the ppod and check out a good ppod dock).

In its infinite wisdom, the Abu Dhabi Education Council (ADEC) has 44 Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) that educational companies have to meet in each school.

Each of these KPIs requires proof of completion (we are checked up on by internal and external auditors). For a lot of them we are required to provide multiple types of evidence. That’s where the bureaucratic nightmare comes in.

KPI 4 for instance sounds simple enough – are Individual Education Plans (IEPs) established for all individual students with special needs?

Given that around 5% of students require IEPs (for us that’s 10 students), you’d be forgiven for thinking this would mean collecting a sample from the 10 and putting them in a folder. So maybe three pieces of paper, right?

Well - no: you’d be very very wrong. My KPI 4 folder contains a two page table of contents and then 161 pieces of paper. I’m not having a bubble bath,,,161 pieces of paper.

It’s not quite times that by 44 to see the size of the job, but it’s not far off.

This is a big task then and one I am committed to complete as far as I can before I leave at the end of this Trimester (21 school days and 4 weekends away as I write this).

I have devoted a lot of time to getting these folders hunky dory and that’s why I feel so tired and it’s only Wednesday. Plus last night was a staff BBQ and a late night hasn’t helped.

Now…about that ipod dock…