Abu Dhabi: Helping parents become more involved in their children’s education and integrating science-based subjects are some of the key challenges facing schools in the capital, a top official said on Monday.
Other issues academic institutions are focusing on are include creating more classes for kindergarten students to meet demand and better special needs assistance, Dr Amal Al Qubaisi, director-general of the Abu Dhabi Education Council (Adec), said.
Dr Amal was speaking to an audience of 1,500 school administrators and higher education officials at the second annual Education Leaders Forum today. “Parents need to be more aware about what their sons and daughters are studying at school. We need to focus on early education and further highlight the importance of teachers in our society by instilling a greater respect for them among the public,” she said.
Echoing Dr Amal’s thoughts, 47-year-old US public school administrator Abdul Salam said that he agreed, especially with the notion of introducing innovation and helping parents become more familiar with their children’s lives at school.
“I think one of the challenges that especially older parents face is the lack of familiarity with technology, which can sometimes keep them from being up to par with their children’s activities. Schools should and usually are capable of helping out in that arena,” he told Gulf News.
Dionne Foy, 39, who has been in the education field for 17 years and in the capital for eight months, said that she believes that just because challenges exist, overcoming them should not be difficult by the year 2020.
“Since the launch of our parent portal, which allows students’ guardians to be up to speed on what is going on in their child’s life and in touch with the school’s teachers, we have noticed a slight improvement in school-parent interaction. I think parents are more comfortable with approaching the administration and our door is always open for assistance,” she said.
In fact, Academic Vice-Principal Sue Miller said that her public institution was recently selected for implementing a robotics course by the Adec.
“Experts will come in during the week to teach cycle 1 (grades one to five) students the very basics of robotics, including the idea and vision, and then the programming and handling the actual robots. Finally, the pupils will conduct a presentation to share their experience with others,” she said.
Dr Amal had also announced the importance of parental integration not only academically but also in extra-curricular activities which is why many of its new schools can now have their facilities open for use even after school hours.
“This initiative will open school gates to the community and parents to find out what they expect from their children’s learning experience. This allows primary education to be viewed as one comprehensive system that ultimately impacts the country as a whole,” Sue said.
Adec announced that it has launched eight initiatives to encourage innovation among Abu Dhabi’s students. These include innovation leaders, the innovation ‘barometer’, the innovation ambassador, innovation clubs, Abu Dhabi Innovates, Our Scientists Competition, Programming for Life and setting up innovation centres.
Heidi Pullyard is a trainee at Gulf News
