Ministry in deal to raise quality of education

Ministry in deal to raise quality of education By Dina El Shammaa, Staff Reporter GULF NEWS Published: January 01, 2008, 23:09

Abu Dhabi: The Ministry of Education (MoE) and the Abu Dhabi Education Council (ADEC) signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) to raise the quality of education across the UAE and encourage international educational standards.

The agreement was signed by Abdullah Al Mussabbeh, Executive Director at the ministry, and Mubarak Saeed Al Shamsi, Director General, ADEC.

"We want to develop governmental and non-governmental schools following the GCC strategy. We will focus on students from kindergarten till 12th grade and are going to start immediately after the signing of this memorandum," said Al Mussabbeh.

ADEC is responsible for the education process in Abu Dhabi and focuses on planning, future development, implementation processes across the nation and in dealing with day to day problems in schools.

Responsibilities

The MoU stated the following: the council is responsible for all employees that work in the education sector in Abu Dhabi as from the date of signing the agreement; the council is responsible to deal with all administrative problems and supervises employees in Abu Dhabi, including school principals, employees, administrators and teachers; the MoE to still pay salaries and pensions as well as compensations that are due to the employees working in Abu Dhabi during the transitional period.

"The ministry during the transitional period will keep paying the salaries of the employees, then the council will take over in all the duties done by the ministry in Abu Dhabi to reach a high level of performance," said Al Mussabeh.

In addition, the ministry is giving all the information concerning Abu Dhabi to the council who aim to evolve the school curriculum allowing students reach international standards, deal with standards of teaching and school maintenance.

The agreement also mentions the number of classes to be given weekly, the beginning and end of the school year, exam dates, holidays and the official working hours; in addition to testing the education level of students through exams that will provide students a chance to go into universities under the supervision of the Ministry and the council held as responsible.