Public and Private schools In UAE to have unified holidays

UAE Education Minister Humaid MohammadAl Qutami

Public and private schools will have uniform holidays for the academic year 2013/14 and private schools refusing to comply with this decision will be penalised, according to the Minister of Education.

Humaid Mohammad Obaid Al Qutami, Minister of Education, made the announcement during the second briefing for the next academic year where he discussed the changes and preparations that the ministry will implement at the start of the school year in September.

The minister also revealed that the new academic year will see many changes in examinations. These include the replacement of second term exams for grade six to eleven students to an evaluation exam and school project. The evaluation exam will be set by the schools and will account for a smaller percentage of the final grade.

This comes in response to parents who were unhappy with the ministry’s decision to divide the school year to three terms instead of two, which was implemented in the academic year 2010/11. Parents said that the additional exam that came with the extra term was a burden to both them and their children.

The Minister also said that grade one to three students in all public schools will have to undergo evaluations in the first school term in the three main subjects: Arabic, English and maths. The third term will be replaced with another evaluation. This will help measure the student’s progress from the first to third term.

Grade three and five students will also have a change in examinations as the second semester exam will be replaced with a national test and a school project.

Grade one to five student’s third term examinations will be replaced with an evaluation, for grade 12 students there will be no changes in examinations.

He also said that all schools, both public and private, will have uniform holidays as of the next academic year stressing that schools which do not comply will face consequences.

During the briefing the minister spoke about the new academic year’s preparations, saying: “We are in full preparation for the academic year as we plan on increasing nationalisation, developing the smart learning initiative even further and working on the schools’ infrastructure so that they will be ready by the start of the year so that God willing we will have a successful year.”

Books
New books, including the biography of the founding leaders, will also be provided to students by the start of the next academic year.

The ministry plans on hiring 282 teachers and has already received 10,000 job applications out of which 2,000 are from Emiratis. The minister also emphasised that this year there will be a special focus on Emiratisation as it plans on hiring 320 Emiratis.

The minister added that principals and staff will take part in leadership enhancement programmes.

Maintenance is another key factor in preparation as the Ministry of Education and Ministry of Public Works will cooperate to implement the first phase of preparation, which will include providing full maintenance for 26 schools. In the second phase 3,000 air-conditioning units will be provided to schools, the third phase will include general maintenance and the renewal of security and safety devices as well as furniture.

The new academic year will also see the launch of three new schools the minister added.

Some of the new initiatives and the developments of current initiatives include: The development of the electronic operational budgets system, the launch of an emergency centre to protect the security of the ministry’s information and adopting an integrated project to develop the adult educational system.