My recent tour of Dubai Schools further reinforced the importance of education in shaping the future. Education has been a key pillar of the UAE’s remarkable transformation into a global economic powerhouse. Its national agenda for development has always included a strong focus on providing quality education not just for its citizens, but also for residents who have chosen the Emirates to be their second home.
Just recently, the government instituted a structural change in the country’s Ministry of Education that is meant to consolidate the progress the UAE has made in the education industry. His Highness Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum, Vice President and Ruler of Dubai, in a tweet said, “The education sector today is not the same as yesterday and our ambitions today are not like yesterday”— a statement that strongly underscores that its vision for the future hinges on a strong and competitive education sector that is able to respond to the challenges of a rapidly evolving world.
World-class quality
A recent PwC report on the education sector revealed that the UAE’s primary and higher education systems rank among the top 20 globally. The country is home to some of the world’s prestigious higher education institutions such as New York University and Sorbonne University in Abu Dhabi. Meanwhile, Dubai hosts top-ranked universities such as the University of Birmingham and the University of Wollongong and include quality, home-grown institutions such as the UAE University and Khalifa University, as well as the American University of Dubai. Meanwhile, the neighbouring Emirate of Sharjah is home to the American University of Sharjah, one of the top ranked research-based universities in the region.
Both Dubai and Abu Dhabi also feature strongly on the list of countries that have the greatest number of international schools, which provide quality education at the pre-university level. Top-level curriculums enable many graduates to enter elite higher education institutions abroad, such as Harvard University and the University of Oxford, among others.
Last year, the Federal Competitiveness and Statistics Centre (FCSC) revealed that the UAE has been ranked first in the Primary Education Enrolment and Literacy Index in the Global Gender Gap Report published by the World Economic Forum, as well as first in terms of the Flow of the International Students Index published by Swiss-based International Management of Development (IMD). These rankings attest to the UAE’s efforts to guarantee inclusive and equitable quality education and promote lifelong learning opportunities for all.
Comprehensive approach
However, the UAE is not only concerned about quality education that focuses on academic competitiveness. As part of its comprehensive approach to education, the UAE made it mandatory for private and public sector schools to teach a course on moral education. The course is envisioned to instil in students the necessary values that will shape their character and help them become positive contributors to society, not just in the UAE, but also globally.
The moral education course aims to encourage students to embrace and practice tolerance, community spirit and compassion, among other positive virtues, that will help them see the world from a moral perspective. The subject is taught without textbooks and there are no examinations.
The Moral Education programme covers four pillars – character and morality; the individual and the community; civic studies; and cultural studies and blends academic content with an exploration of character and ethics.
In a statement released when it was launched, the government said it was keen to “build the tools that will allow all children, not just Emirati children but all children growing in the UAE, to be the best prepared for the world when they are adults.”
HSDF Initiatives
These programmes have inspired many Companies to adopt education-based CSR initiatives which is why the Hussain Sajwani-DAMAC Foundation announced last month that it has proactively collaborated with The Knowledge Fund and the Dubai Schools Project to offer scholarships to UAE National Children for a 5-year period.
This new initiative follows the launch of the Fresh Slate Initiative which was announced at the start of Ramadan this year, to aid detainees in Dubai’s Punitive and Correctional Institutions who have been charged for petty offences.
In May of this year, the ‘One Million Arab Coders’ initiative, wrapped up after a successful five-year run. Organised under the umbrella of the Mohammed Bin Rashid Al Maktoum Global Initiatives (MBRGI) and led by the Dubai Future Foundation, the programme succeeded in attracting more than one million Arab young men and women from 80 countries to participate in the initiative and learn the language of coding.
The Hussain Sajwani DAMAC Foundation was a chief backer of this important initiative, and the organisation remains committed to investing in people and spreading hope to Arab youth, equipping them with tools to carve out a better future for themselves and generations to come.
With such programmes in place, as well as other measures that continue to enhance the quality of education in the UAE, the future looks bright indeed for the Emirates, for citizens and residents alike, where quality of life is among the best in the world and where tolerance, compassion and equality are strong hallmarks of the social fabric of the community.
