The Ministry of Education (MoE) has rolled out a distance learning system for two weeks, targeting all students in the UAE’s schools and higher education institutions.
The move is in line with the earlier decision by the ministry to move forward the spring break and shut schools for four weeks, the last two weeks of which are devoted to resuming study through the distance learning system.
A report by state news agency WAM noted that the timeline of the distance learning classes in government schools, 20 classes per week are held in the first cycle at three hours per day and two optional hours in the morning between 9:00 and 11:00 are devoted to activities. Evening classes are between 16:00 and 19:25.
As for the second cycle, 20 classes are held per week at four hours per day. Classes start at 9:00 and continue till 12:45 and an evening hour (between 17:00 and 17:50) is allocated for reading enrichment and a variety of exercises.
Some 30 hours per week at six hours per day are allotted to the third cycle, which includes two morning and evening sessions. Morning classes start at 9:00 and continue till 13:25, while the evening session begins at 17:00 and continues till 19:05.
As for the private schools that follow the ministry’s curriculum and other curricula, the MoE has sent advisory plans in this connection, and it is left for them to implement the distance learning plan according to their approved timelines.
According to MoE, it has completed all the procedures necessary to bring about positive cognitive outcomes through the distance learning system, following several experiments the ministry conducted to measure the effectiveness of the initiative last week.
The ministry also implemented remote specialist training for more than 25,000 government school teachers and administrators in addition to more than 9,200 private school teachers and principals. During the approved training week, the ministry focused on creating virtual learning communities aimed at enhancing the teacher’s capabilities to remotely manage the education process and documenting the best practices to have an efficient learning process of high performance.
The MoE, in co-operation with the Hamdan Bin Mohammed Smart University, has also successfully qualified more than 67,000 affiliates who recently underwent e-training in distance learning through a free course titled ‘Be an online tutor in 24 hours’ that was launched online to provide the teaching and academic personnel of all levels from inside and outside the UAE with the skills of managing and operating online classrooms via the internet.
The MoE has also equipped two advanced operations centre with modern systems and screens, enabling the school operations sector to monitor the learning process. This is aimed at ensuring smooth dealing with the information technology resources and effective communication between students and teachers. To ensure efficient educational processes, the MoE opened an operations center at the Emirati School building in Abu Dhabi and another at the Teacher Training Institute in Ajman.
