ABU DHABI // A shake-up in the management of education in the emirate has been announced in advance of new policy directives.
Dr Mugheer al Khaili has replaced Mubarak al Shamesi as director general of Abu Dhabi Education Council (Adec), which is taking over more responsibilities from the Federal Government as part of a trend towards decentralisation and strengthening authorities at the emirate level.
Under a law issued by Sheikh Khalifa bin Zayed, President of the UAE and Ruler of Abu Dhabi, Adec will issue licences for education establishments, supervise education zones and schools, and create and implement standards for education organisations. The law makes Adec financially and administratively independent and gives it responsibility for setting schedules for the start and end of the academic year. It will also take over responsibility for attesting degrees issued by government and non-government institutions.
“Enactment of the law will directly support the education reform initiative and is a major part of the government-wide restructuring to help create this cohesion,” an Adec statement said.
Since it was created in Sept 2005, Adec has assumed many functions that were previously the responsibility of the Ministry of Education and the Ministry of Higher Education and Scientific Research.
The changes come days before Adec is to reveal its policy strategy, the latest in a series of announcements by the different sectors of government in Abu Dhabi.
Dr Khaili, who spent a decade working in the special department of Sheikh Zayed bin Sultan, the founder of the UAE, was appointed Adec director general under a resolution from Sheikh Mohammed bin Zayed, Crown Prince of Abu Dhabi and Adec chairman. He said in a statement he was “very proud” to become Adec’s director general.
“The future economic growth and civic development of Abu Dhabi will be the responsibility of our youth,” he said. “Preparing them for their role in our society and to contribute towards our future prosperity is our responsibility.”
Adec said its priorities centred on promoting new school curricula, introducing student-centred learning methods and improving accountability by involving parents in education reform.
Since it was set up, Adec has developed a set of uniform curriculum standards for government schools.
It has also launched the Public Private Partnership (PPP) for Public School Management government school reform programme.
So far, 61 schools in Abu Dhabi, Al Ain and Al Gharbia have been designated as PPP schools and 57 will be added in the next academic year.
Adec is also creating a higher education group that will assess applications from tertiary institutions looking to open in the emirate. The council has said it would give priority to universities that offered a wide range of subjects, amid concerns that some institutions in the UAE focused too heavily on subjects such as IT and business. Universities that plan to develop a strong research base will also be favoured.
Dr Clifton Chadwick, a senior lecturer in international education management and policy development at the British University in Dubai, said the PPP project and curriculum standards were “significant” accomplishments.
“I think to decentralise and move things out from the ministry to individual units is a positive move for the education system, but you do have then the problem of co-ordination. The ministry has programmes, Adec has programmes and the KHDA has programmes and they are not necessarily co-ordinated,” he said.
Adec’s Dubai equivalent, the Knowledge and Human Development Authority (KHDA), is also seeing its responsibilities increase.
Dr Khaili has a PhD in business administration from Ain Shams University in Egypt and was secretary general of the UAE University from 2005 to 2007 before becoming a member of the Federal National Council. He has also been a board member of Khalifa University and the Paris Sorbonne Abu Dhabi University.
Daniel Bardsley