A system that stresses lifelong learning

Abdullah Al Shaiba writes on the concept of Future Schools.

Education, in general, is about how to prepare an individual for life. Therefore, development and prosperity of societies are usually connected to the effectiveness and success of their educational systems.

Among the major factors that help educational bodies achieve their goals is continuous evaluation by decision makers and their ability to implement strategic policies.

This has been clearly expressed by the Ministry of Education ( MoE) that recently announced the launching of a new, broad and strategic plan to implement 'revolutionary' developments in our education arena. The major focus of that plan is the UAE national student.

Student in focus

The importance of focusing on students and the ways to prepare them for employment is because an increasing number of UAE nationals will complete secondary education, most likely enter higher education institutions and later seek jobs.

According to a recent statement by Shaikh Nahyan Bin Mubarak Al Nahyan, Minister of Higher Education and Scientific Research, after 10 years, secondary schools will graduate approximately 45,000 national students, an increase of 11,000 over the current number.

This poses a challenge to the Ministry of Education - how to prepare these students through an efficient educational system for the requirements of higher education institutions and the labour market.

A proposed solution is introducing Future Schools, defined by one researcher as the "most developed school that instructors aim to create to fulfill the diverse requirements of students and equip them with the appropriate foundations which would assist them to continue higher education programmes and, simultaneously, cope effectively with their duties and responsibilities within their modern communities." (Al Abdul Kareem, 2002 )

This type of school focuses on inculcating life-long learning through the educational system's ability to offer effective solutions for the challenges that societies might face. It extensively uses state-of-the art instructional technology. Computers are the major tool in such an educational environment.

Future Schools should:

- Connect its students with the requirements and development plans of their society;

- Establish a realistic relationship between what students do outside school and what they do inside;

- Offer academic and practical courses that aim at equipping the student with the knowledge and skills required for either higher education or the labour market;

- Encourage the students to practise leadership skills and be responsible for their decisions and acts.

Students of future schools should possess:

- Good level of learning;

- Creativity;

- Communication skills;

- Initiative, and be able to compete and work in teams.

Students being the centre of the instructional processes at Future Schools, they graduate with the following skills:

- High level of learning and knowledge;

- Effective communication skills;

- Flexibility and ability to adapt with the new changes and challenges of the labour market;

- Ability to work in teams;

- Fluency in their mother language in addition to a foreign language;

- Time management;

- Use of advanced IT applications;

- A willingness towards life-long learning.

If this type of school is what the new education strategy aims to establish, I must stress that "Future Schools must work together with the future family, future communications, future media, etc, which means that Future Schools are part of a future society". ( Al Abdul Kareem, 2002 )

To create effective UAE Future Schools, the following factors must be available:

- Set up a strategic vision to transfer the entire UAE society into the future society;

- Provide regular updated statistics on the current and expected numbers of national students, schools and higher education institutions in future;

- Identify the requirements of both the higher education institutions and the labour market from students of Future Schools - in terms of quality and quantity;

- Provide the appropriate learning environment;

- Allocate the required budgets, for at least 10 years, to improve all education conditions (maintenance of school buildings; labs; upgrading the curriculum; on-the-job training for teachers and raising their salaries)

- All schools in the UAE - public and private - must work within the Future Schools structure.

In practise in Australia

- The Future Schools system has been adapted for a long time in many developed countries such as the US and Australia.

- Australia has managed to establish a 'social partnership' between schools and parents, NGOs, industrial sectors, the labour market and training centres.

- The Australian Ministry of Education, Science and Training has confirmed the contribution of this partnership in producing new ideas between the partners.

- At the same time, it has served to establish a clear connection between the results of education and the requirements of employment.