The Deputy Undersecretary of the Ministry of Education for the School Operations Sector, Fawzia Gharib, revealed that the Ministry developed three future scenarios for the remote education system, linked to the Corona pandemic case (COFED-19), and includes the continuation of hypothetical education in the event of an epidemic, and the return of direct education at a rate not exceeding 50%, in addition to merging direct and virtual education.
Gharib explained, during the virtual session of Ramadan organized by the Khalifa Award for Education, under the title: "Distance Learning ... Vision and Directions", that the first scenario is related to the continuation of the epidemic "Covid-19", where the virtual distance education will be at a full rate. Smart education will be the focus of education in the country. As for the second scenario, it will be specific to the transitional stage after the virus has fled and the state has fully recovered from it, as traditional education is applied gradually, with direct education returning between 30 and 50%. The third scenario represents a development plan, which the Ministry seeks to implement in the event that life returns to normal before Corona. It includes the integration of direct and virtual education in specific proportions, as the proportion of direct education may be 70%, and the default 30%, so that we can keep pace with technological development and the transition to digital education in the country.
“Every plan has a certain time span, and if the Corona virus continues to spread, the ministry will complete the implementation of distance education for the next academic year, but if it expires, education will be subject to a transitional scenario, which may be six months of the next school year,” Gharib said. "The future plan will be drawn up almost a year after the return to normalcy."
She stressed that "the UAE can be a regional center for distance education, especially since there are many factors that support this, whether at the political, economic, technological or social level," noting that "the state is a pioneer in implementing distance education."
Gharib stressed that "the digital transformation in distance education will affect the re-engineering of the Ministry of Education's strategy, in terms of school buildings, implementation of direct education, the extent of the student's need to sit on the school bench five days per week, school hours and the extent of the student's need to study daily from seven in the morning until Two in the evening. ”
She said, "The study plan, the school day and the study trip must be completely re-engineered, according to what the state and its educational system hope and aspire to, after benefiting from the positive aspects that the school stage went through during the emergence of the new Corona virus."