The Third Teachers’ Curriculum Forum kicked off at the Emirati
School in Abu Dhabi today. Held under the slogan ‘Molhemoon’ (Inspirers), the
forum was attended by H.E. Hussain Bin Ibrahim Al Hammadi, Minister of
Education, and H.E. Zaki Anwar Nusseibeh, Minister of State.
The Forum was also attended by H.E. Dr. Talal Abu Ghazaleh, Chairman
and Founder of Talal Abu Ghazaleh Organization, H.E. Eng. Abdul Rahman Al
Hammadi, Undersecretary of the Ministry of Education, and a number of officials
and educational leaders.
The forum, which continued in Abu Dhabi, Al Dhafra, Al Ain, Ajman
and Sharjah until January 10, targeted 23,000 teachers from all majors.
The forum is a promising platform that enhances the ministry’s
vision and educational mission aimed at building a competitive education system
in which teachers are the cornerstone, Al Hammadi said, noting that the forum is
an educational project that emerged from the Ministry of Education’s philosophy
aimed at empowering teachers through the continuous specialized training that
contributes to developing their skills and capabilities and improving their professional
competencies in general.
Held under the title ‘Molhemoon’, this year’s forum discusses significant
educational issues and streams that bolsters the Emirati School’s leading role
and direct effect on students in terms of enabling them to make the best of
sciences and knowledge through up-to-date educational methods, employing
technology and artificial intelligence (AI) in the process of teaching, exploring
the modern education strategies, learning about the pioneering educational
experiences and paying attention to whatever elements that provide a learning
environment that takes into account the differences among students and helps
them gain the skill of creative thinking, he said.
Stating that the forum has become an educational pillar that
provides the latest innovations in the world of teaching, Al Hammadi said: “We
look forward through the forum to investing in the capabilities of the teacher,
who is the basis of the teaching and learning process in view of his influential
role in shaping the awareness of students and motivating them to seek academic
excellence.”
Most UAE teachers are targeted through this forum, which includes a
large number of specialized training workshops run by specialists and education
leaders at the UAE level, he said.
Al Hammadi emphasized that the attention paid by the wise leadership
to the future generations as embodied in its keenness on providing qualitative
education to get excellent outputs necessitates all elements of the educational
process to be developed in order to maintain a competitive lead that
contributes to consolidating the UAE’s orientations in the community of
knowledge-based economy.
Earlier, Nusseibeh stressed in his inaugural speech titled ‘Zayed
the Inspirer’ that the late Sheikh Zayed Bin Sultan Al Nahyan - may Allah rest
his soul – founded a highly developed federal state by all measures and exerted
strenuous efforts to maintain its lead based on his profound belief that human
capital is the real wealth of peoples and that his people and country are capable
of making their impossible goals possible. Zayed worked hard and his
personality combined all the qualities of a leader, he said, adding that Sheikh
Zayed realized the rules of the game of balances and the concepts of solving disputes
arising among parties, he said.
“By virtue of Sheikh Zayed’s belief in the importance of investing
in human wealth as an absolute priority since his early years as governor of
the Eastern Region, we find that he always concentrated on creating educational
opportunities for the new generation of males and females. As a result, the
first school was opened in Al Ain in 1959 and was called Al Nahyaniya School,”
he added.
“Zayed was keen that UAE educational institutions strike a balance
between the traditional and modern educational programs and insisted that
girls’ education receive no less attention than male education. Based on this,
he allocated an educational budget of 4 per cent of the federal general budget
to implement a program to builds a number of schools most urgently”, he said.
Meanwhile, Abu Ghazaleh underscored the importance of introducing
AI concepts in education at the Arab level to bring about a real
innovation-based civilizational upswing.
He also underlined the importance of providing a digital education
system in order to have a knowledge-based society as per governing rules that ensure
students’ creativity and excellence and hence producing knowledge.
“We need inspiring and innovative teachers and not instructors who
follow the traditional methods of education, which are no longer useful in light
of the accelerating scientific and technological developments worldwide,” he
said.
Thanks to the modern technology, information is currently provided
to everyone and is no longer restricted to anyone even teachers and
consequently universities and schools should turn into incubators for
innovation and learning and not just for practicing education, he said, noting
that studies showed that artificial intelligence technologies would teach
people without the need for memorization and this would necessitate the teacher’s
tools and his ability to compete with modern technologies to be reconsidered.
Abu Ghazaleh stressed the importance of choosing the appropriate type
of learning for students of different categories and abilities, taking into
account that they have differentiated levels of knowledge and hence what
benefits a student does not necessarily benefit another student. He said: “Students
currently account for 20 per cent of the population but the entire society will
consist of students in future and this necessitates us to enable them to meet
the requirements of their era in light of the current AI revolutions.”
Saleh Bin Mohammed Al Khazim, a Saudi writer and author, delivered a
speech in which he reviewed some inspiring experiences and success factors of
the most important figures from around the world.
Colonel Dr. Faisal Sultan Al Shuaibi, Director General of Strategy
and Performance Development at the Ministry of Interior, talked about the Global
Inspiration Platform launched by Lt. General His Highness Sheikh Saif Bin Zayed
Al Nahyan, Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Interior.
He emphasized that the UAE turned nowadays into a land of
inspiration and unique opportunities, thanks to the efforts and vision of its
wise leadership, which rendered challenges a source of success and a modern
model to follow by millions of people around the world.
The forum offers more than 1,290 specialized workshops including
the Ideas Lab, an innovative workshop dedicated to exploring ways of co-operation
and knowledge exchange and developing strategies for enhancing the levels of
education in the UAE.
The forum aims to develop and improve the performance of teachers
and enhance their teaching skills, enabling them to keep pace with the UAE’s agenda
items related to education with a view to reaching educational outputs capable
of making its future and moving forward in the process of development witnessed
by the UAE in all fields.
The forum seeks to learn about the world’s best experiences and
practices in teaching all curricula, activate the use of modern teaching methods
and strategies in line with the nature of each curriculum, highlight the most
important classroom practices that pave the way for differentiated teaching that
takes into account the characteristics of learners, and finally disseminate the
culture of using assessment tools for learning in the Emirati school.