National Day/ Integrated Educational System

Doha, December 16 (QNA) - The Supreme Education Council (SEC) achieved a progress in building an effective educational system through projects to develop and improve education or to address the challenges affecting the implementation of initiatives aimed to achieve the goals and benefit from the best international practices in order to meet the national needs in an innovative and distinctive learning environment that is capable of achieving success. The Education and Training Sector Strategy (ETSS) in the State of Qatar is one of the inputs of the national development strategy which helps to achieve the objectives of Qatar National Vision 2030. The Council seeks to upgrade the education and training sector through 21 outcomes and 31 projects in order to ensure the needs of the state of distinguished human resources in various directions under the general policy of the state. To implement the strategic plan for education and training, ministerial decision No. 14 of 2011 on the formation of the steering committee of the ESC's Strategic Plan was issued to develop the plan and oversee its implementation as well as to adjust it if needed. Key partners such as the Qatar Foundation for Education, Science and Community Development and Qatar University in addition to 25 governmental institutions also participate with the Supreme Council of Education in the implementation of the plans. In the area of ??developing the private schools performance, the ministerial decision No. 8 of 2009 was issued to amend the private schools positions in accordance with the standards and requirements of the SEC, which includes the national curriculum standards or the implementation of an approved curriculum in private schools. The academic calendar has been also unified between private and independent schools from the year 2010/2011. As for the educational voucher, the Council confirms that it aims to build an integrated system in order to achieve the principles of diversity and choice between schools that compete in maintaining its students by providing a high quality education with the availability of educational vouchers, whether for independent schools or accredited private schools with determine the amount of educational voucher in the amount of 28,000 riyals. In terms of the achievements of the Community College, the first batch of Community College has been graduated. The number of the graduated students was 11 including 9 got the Associate Diploma in Arts, while the other two got the Associate Diploma in Science. On the other hand, the Council is keen on providing international standard criteria to assess the situation of the educational system in the State of Qatar in comparison to the rest regulations as an external neutral evaluation to be used to know the strengths and weaknesses in reading, mathematics and science in an international context and to identify factors affecting the education and the effectiveness of the curriculum in addition to obtain comprehensive data in the areas in which students learned and measure the progress. Regarding the scale development, the competence of the Ministry of Education and Higher Education was shifted to the Supreme Education Council. All staff of the ministry and the Council were also integrated and all schools of latter regiment shifted from public schools to independent schools by 65 schools in the seventh regiment and adding four new schools in the eighth regiment. Local guides has been provided for supporting schools. Six schools for parallel education were also re-opened for both females and males with amending the law of independent schools and adopting its organizational structure after converting all Qatar government schools to independent schools and rehabilitating the administrative and academic staff as well as attracting large proportions of teachers. The council also reviewed all policies and laws to develop the schools to fit with the educational reality. In the area of SEC's programs and future projects for 2012/2013, the Council put a comprehensive strategic plan extends to ten years for education and training sector in order to promote the concepts of quality, effectiveness and inclusiveness to implement the programs of the strategic plan projects, in cooperation with all relevant authorities in the state. The plan was set to provide updated and credible evidences to base on in the decision-making process in education and training sector and to launch a project to develop the national network (the first phase), in addition to implement the SIS-New school Management System; a project to develop a database of students. The Council also works on graduates follow-up study and issuing a set of statistical releases including "statistical report for 2011/2012", and "2012/2013 statistical summary". The Council also worked to promote Qatari national, Arab, and Islamic values and integrated them into all aspects of work in the education and training sector in addition to organize the purposeful participations of all independent and private schools and universities in the National Day of the State of Qatar. The Council seeks to optimize the use of information, communication technology and e-learning and to expand the implementation of the learning management system through a comprehensive provision of electronic content that supports of the teachers and students in a comprehensive manner as well as to implement the E-Library project towards the application progress project 'device for each student'. The ESC also aims to improve the participation of the community and parents in the education system from kindergarten to the 12th grade and the implementation of the electronic questionnaires project in and to improve the performance of boards of trustees in schools. The Council aims to develop programs and outputs of education and technical and vocational training adapted to the needs of the Qatari society and the labor market and to develop as well educational, technical and vocational training programs and a model for the development of partnerships between the public and private sectors to serve the education and technical and vocational training and their implementation. (QNA)