Dubai/Abu Dhabi: The announcement of unification of holidays evoked mixed reactions.
The American University of Sharjah (AUS), which is a private institution, confirmed receiving a document from the Ministry of Higher Education and Scientific Research (MOHESR) about unifying holidays with public institutions.
Salem Al Qaseer, Vice Chancellor for Public Affairs at AUS, said the university was reviewing the document and would be able to implement the requirements in the future.
Raymi Van der Spek, executive director of University of Wollongong in Dubai, was not in favour of the decision. He said the institution had not received any official document from the MOHESR so far. However, the MOHESR's Commission for Academic Accreditation had sent out a request to universities at the beginning of the year to change their holiday and spring semester dates, he said.
"It will be extraordinarily difficult for private universities to do this because there are universities that align themselves to the parent campus in terms of delivery of the curriculum."
He added that the decision will greatly affect those schools and universities that offer an international curriculum. "When it comes to school exams, for the International Baccalaureate or the ICSEs [Indian Certificate of Secondary Education] or the GCSEs [General Certificate of Secondary Education], they have exams across the world at the same time.
"You cannot have an international curriculum with a local time frame," Van der Spek said.
"Parents and students can now plan on having vacations at the same time. Like us, many universities and schools couldn't publish calendars as early as we would have wished. But if we know the holidays ahead of time, then we can plan better and communicate the schedule early," Dr James Mackin, Provost of Abu Dhabi University, said.
