MoE's 21 Goals Signal Radical Changes Ahead
The UAE's Ministry of Education is responsible for public education in the UAE, but also oversees private education in certain emirates. The 21 goals the ministry has set for the next 50 years are therefore likely to be, at least in some measure, adopted by the private schools regulators for Abu Dhabi, Dubai and Sharjah.
Changes to the current educational system may include issuing regulations to allow self-education (which we translate as home schooling; currently students need to be registered with a physical, recognised UAE school), establishing schools for students with gifts and talents (currently the UAE requires schools to be inclusive) and expanding vocational schools, among other measures.
The presentation included a number of educational goals for the "Next 50", including strengthening continuing education, promoting moral and positive values, transforming schools into incubators for entrepreneurship, focusing on applied education, and on the disciplines of advanced science and technology, space, engineering, innovation, and medical sciences, health, humanities, and design.
Representatives from the Ministry of Education explained that the UAE’s education sector and its future development depended on eight key targets. These include:
- the need for future curricula to instil future skills among students,
- strengthening educational institutions with technology and innovation,
- building a bridge between educational provision and the labour market,
- facilitating lifelong education and future qualifications,
- assessing and measuring the impact of the educational system on students,
- designing teaching delivery that meets the needs and capabilities of each student individually,
- the participation of students and their families in designing the curricula,
- and providing flexibility in the number of years of study, according to the individual needs of each student.
The Ministry plans to achieve the eight key targets through converting curricula to be more interactive and digitally based, which will allow a more flexible approach and incorporation of global changes; measuring and adapting educational provision to the requirements of the labour market. It will also issue new regulations and platforms "to accommodate the demand for distance education with an increasing focus on virtual and augmented reality and Artificial Intelligence".
According to the Ministry, the goals will require teachers to adapt and become guides for their students, and will require teachers "to be armed with the latest skills to support students in a more on-line, digitalised world".
