The future of the UAE lies in the hands of its young people and the government fully understands the importance of giving them the best education that is possible so that they are equipped to face the challenges of the 21st century and beyond. The UAE has very ambitious plans but they depend entirely on the ability of its own future generations to fulfil the nation’s dreams. This is why the exciting changes announced this week for the UAE’s public education sector are so important.
New curricula and different academic streams are only some of the major developments that His Highness Shaikh Mohammad Bin Rashid Al Maktoum, Vice-President and Prime Minister of the UAE and Ruler of Dubai, has approved. He also took the time to speak of the importance of getting support for the plans from three vital stakeholders: the teachers who need the skills to teach the new curriculum with confidence and commitment; the pupils who need to take pride in knowing that they are being given the best that is available; and also the parents, who may hark back to their own education of previous decades but need to be informed enough to encourage the new ideas.
The key to the plans outlined by ministry of education officials is a double focus on new curricula and new academic streams. The subjects that will get new curricula include technology, design, health science and business management — all of which are key topics for the country’s future. But it is also important that the academic streams have been opened up by unifying science and literature, which allows students following either arts or science to have a welcome appreciation of both strands of knowledge much longer through their school career.
The ministry has also started an elite stream to allow high achieving pupils to move more deeply into their subjects, which also allows them to move ahead at their own pace. The changes also include a very healthy new strand of the all-important soft subjects like life skills and career guidance, which have been overlooked in the past yet have a huge and very positive impact on the way young people conduct their lives. Public school teachers are the key to making this great initiative a success. They bear a heavy responsibility to themselves, their pupils and the nation.
