Dubai: The third edition of the Emirates Award for Educational Excellence will now include private schools, the Ministry of Education announced on Monday during a press conference held in Dubai.
Registration for the award, which is now open, will end on March 31, 2015. The winners of the award will be announced in May 2015.
Marwan Al Sawaleh, Undersecretary of the Ministry of Education, said the award will include 13 new and updated categories this year. In total there will be 27 categories.
Al Sawaleh said the award will feature updated categories such as ‘Exceptional family’, ‘Exceptional student’, ‘Exceptional private school’, ‘Exceptional school with the highest student grades’, Exceptional adult education centre’ and ‘Exceptional partner’, to name a few.
Categories that have been developed this year include the ‘Exceptional teacher category’, which will add subcategories that include ‘Exceptional activities teacher’ and ‘Exceptional Kindergarten teacher’, to name a few.
“The award aims to fulfil the ministry’s strategic goals (2015-2021) and enhance the quality of education. The ministry hopes the award will help in harnessing innovation and creativity in the development of education,” Al Sawaleh said.
Minister of Education Hussain Ebrahim Al Hammadi hopes that the award will harness a culture of quality and excellence in all classes, schools, educational zones and the ministry itself.
Hala Badri, the executive vice-president of Brand and Communication at du telecommunication company, which is the official sponsor of the award, said du hopes to cross over to becoming a service provider.
Hala said du is going to have a series of projects that will help provide educational technology services. Among them is a project that will involve having WiFi access in all private schools in the country.
“This will help them reach their parent when they are on the way to school. This is especially important after the Abu Dhabi incident where a girl died after she was forgotten in the school bus.”
The second edition of the award ceremony saw more than 280 applicants and the ministry expects this number to increase after the new updated categories have been added.
