The Minister of Education, Hussein Al Hammadi, affirmed that the UAE was proactive in adopting educational strategies, plans and scenarios that would achieve an intelligent learning system, surrounded by educational capabilities and multiple educational resources and capabilities. This prepared the means to activate the smart learning system for about 1.2 million Emirati school students, at 100% without prominent obstacles, and to respond quickly to the requirements of the current stage as a result of the spread of the Corona virus emerging, at a time when several countries have experienced severe difficulties, which negatively affected the continuation of the learning process .
This came during his participation in the regional dialogue launched by the UNESCO office in Beirut and the Regional Center for Educational Planning, the day before yesterday, on the future of education after the Corona pandemic.
Al-Hammadi outlined the potential for developing education after "Covid-19" in terms of its ability to absorb current updates, in four basic factors, namely, infrastructure, policies, organized frameworks, developed curricula, qualification and training, indicating that the development of education outcomes is based on important rules, which are summed up in learning Intelligent and care system and activities, students' skills, and the strengthening of the higher education system.
For her part, Director of the Regional Center for Educational Planning, Dr. Mahra Al-Mutaiwi, confirmed that the “Covid-19” pandemic has left major impacts on educational systems in the world, and forced them to re-prioritize and change their strategy, as this pandemic affected its climax on the education of 1.6 billion students who were cut off On going to schools and universities and receiving their education remotely, it imposed the necessity of providing education in a different and unorthodox way, through means such as the Internet and television.
She said that the positive aspects of the changes imposed by the pandemic will continue, and that systems must find different ways to prepare the teacher in a creative way, which will acquire the skills required to deal with this reality. The systems also have to review and update the skills matrix given to students, in a way that makes them more prepared for the future.
“The pandemic has created a challenge to the quality of education, which forces educational systems to develop new frameworks to measure its quality and address the digital divide that exists between students and teachers,” she added. We need to develop a global framework for coordination and building effective partnerships between public and private institutions so that students around the world can obtain an equitable and quality education. ”
The Director of the UNESCO Office in Beirut, Dr. Hamad Al-Hammami, emphasized that education in the Arab region after the Corona pandemic will witness great transformations.
He said that the most prominent challenges faced by educational systems during the pandemic are the lack of readiness of some education systems in the Arab region for distance learning, the weak educational structure and the large disparity between young people who possess modern technology, and the lack of readiness of educational cadres to switch to distance education.