What's troubling the education sector?

Educator Abdullah Al Shaiba on three challenges that have to be faced

Nearly two months after the start of academic year 2006-2007, there have been many dramatic developments within our educational sector.

In my view, the most important events that have happened are: the increasing rate of resignations among the teachers; mistakes in textbooks and the delay in implementing some of the proposals of the new education strategy.

Callenge 1
Teachers' resignations
It has been documented that by the end of September 2006, there were more than 818 resignations submitted by both UAE national and foreign teachers.

The well-known reasons behind this problem include:

• The change in the retirement age;
• The rising prices in food and other items and in house rentals as well;
• The frustration among many teachers because of the continuous promises aimed at improving the educational conditions facing the daily increase in teachers' tasks;
• The availability of better jobs in terms of work hours and salaries;
• The obvious differences in allowances and privileges between the teachers in Abu Dhabi, Al Ain and the Western educational zones and their peers in other areas in the country; the former witness much better conditions than the latter;
• The pressure of duties;
• The decrease in summer holidays;
• The new restrictions in the promotion process which were viewed by many teachers and administrators as obstacles not encouragement;
• The lack of both institutional and social appreciation of the role the teacher plays in general;
• The delay in implementing the new proposed personnel structure which should improve significantly the financial conditions for the teachers; and
• The lack of a well-designed system that awards the creative teachers encouraging them to perform their best and, in the meantime, punishes those who do not achieve the expected objectives.

Callenge 2
Mistakes in textbooks
With regard to the mistakes discovered in the textbooks of National Education and Islamic Religion, they reflect a real disaster in the process of writing and reviewing our textbooks, which is a key part of curriculum development in general.

This problem contradicts the statements made by the Centre of Developing the Educational Curriculum, prior to the start of the academic year, which emphasised the adequate and suitable content of the new books.

Callenge 3
New education strategy
The third development I have observed was the delay in implementing some stages that formed key parts of the new education strategy and were discussed in one of my previous articles.

These stages were the extension of the academic day and the implementation of the decentralisation process between the ministry and both educational zones and schools.

However, one cannot ignore that a major part of the new education strategy has been conducted as promised by the Dr Hanif Hassan, Minister of Education.

This was the launching of the new examination system within secondary education as the beginning of a comprehensive process on all aspects of the examination system at other educational levels.

Conclusions
All these developments have posed serious questions about strategy and performance.

The last academic year - 2005-06 - ended with many promises and statements about various new improvements in the condition of education in general and the teachers in particular.

However, what has been happening reflects a wrong understanding of many contemporary issues that will have its strategic implications on our educational system.

Consequently, it is imperative for the Ministry of Education to revise its policies and to study carefully the education scene in order to deal with the challenges that form authentic obstacles in the process of educational development.