Dubai: Members of the Federal National Council (FNC) will discuss on Tuesday a plan to improve secondary schools enough to address shortages in basic skills among school leavers.

Humaid Al Qutami, Minister of Education, is expected to be quizzed by three members of the council about a plan to make the foundation programmes for secondary school leavers unnecessary, and a new system for schools to have three semesters from this academic session.

Khalifa Abdullah Bin Howaiden, a member from Sharjah, is to pose a question to the minister on the standards of secondary school leavers, which “do not match requirement of higher education”.

Salem Mohammad Al Naqbi, another member from Sharjah, is espected to ask a question about the three-semester system, while Ahmad Bin Shabib Al Daheri, First Deputy Speaker of the House, is to raise the question of an educational program to improve skills of students known as Masar.

Members of the legislature argue a greater emphasis on problem-solving and creative thinking were key, followed by investing more in local teaching staff and an increased focus on foreign languages.

They also suggested measures for improving secondary school education included an increased emphasis on verbal communication skills, stricter enforcement of school attendance and greater investment in educational facilities.

A study by the Ministry of Education in 2005 found that by grade seven - around 12 years old - 68 per cent of pupils in public schools were two or more years below grade level in English reading and 74 per cent were at least two years behind in writing.

Bin Howaiden said a problem facing schools was that many English teachers did not speak the language fluently, leaving studenrts with inadequate skills in English.

Stressing shortages in basic skills among school leavers is a crucial challenge, Bin Howaiden said it is not just an English-language issue, as majority of students have as poor Arabic and maths as their English.

The FNC discussions come as the Ministry of Education is planning to phasing out the need for remedial courses for students about to enter university, which cost the higher education ministry about a third of its budget, according to Shaikh Nahyan Bin Mubarak Al Nahyan, Minister of Higher Education.

The foundation programmes, which were established to allow under-prepared school leavers to learn the skills to begin university coursework, is part of an ambitious government strategy to overhaul education from kindergarten to grade 12, when pupils would be around 17.

His Highness Shaikh Mohammad Bin Rashid, Vice President and Prime Minister of the UAE and Ruler of Dubai, has asked the public for feedback on the new strategy, and there is no timetable for the end of the foundation programmes listed in the highlights of the government strategy.

However, academics said remedial courses could not simply be removed if the quality of secondary education remained below par.
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The Federal national Council will also debate a report by an ad hoc committee on policy of the federal human resources agency.

The agency’s strategy includes supervising employee performance and accordingly linking it to their career path, in addition to providing training and continuous education systems. It will also include a central ministerial system for complaints and objections to preserve the rights of all parties.

It also includes regulatory policies and planning programmes for human resources, organisational units for organisational excellence, strategic planning, international relations and government liaison units.

The agency is tasked with drawing human resources general policies in accordance with the federal policies, approving human resources standards and specifications in accordance with international criteria and evolving plans and strategies and supervising their implementation.