Minister of Education and Higher Education H E Buthaina bint Ali Al Jabr Al Nuaimi
Doha: Minister of Education and Higher Education H E Buthaina bint Ali Al Jabr Al Nuaimi has announced four main axes for the development of the educational system in Qatar over the next eight years, in implementation of Qatar National Vision 2030.
The Minister also announced four initiatives for the new academic year 2022-23, based on the four axes.
In her speech at the first educational meeting organised by the Ministry yesterday, the Minister said that the first axis of this system is students who we aspire to be lifelong science students, armed with knowledge and characterized by flexibility, passion, curiosity and creativity, by enhancing their achievements and ensuring their continuity, equipping them with the skills of the 21st century, instilling the values of the Qatari identity in them, and developing and enhancing them.
Second axis is the teachers who we aspire to represent role models that provide students with inspiration and motivation to develop themselves and strive to achieve excellence, through targeting and attracting distinguished Qatari teachers and school leaders, training and developing them.
The Minister said that the third axis is schools which we aspire to make them beacons of science and safe, advanced, rich and attractive environments, through the development of early education services, raising enrolment rates, building a comprehensive educational experience aimed at improving the quality of school life of students.
She noted that the fourth axis focuses on the Ministry of Education and Higher Education, which we aspire to turn into a centre that builds and develops innovations and capabilities, through the development of institutional capabilities, while ensuring the highest level of transparency and accountability; in addition to building partnerships with families, the public and private sectors, to achieve efficiency, equality, inclusiveness, growth and innovation.
The Minister shed light on the new initiatives, noting that the first initiative is “Good Start”, a programme to train and guide new teachers through an advanced experience in training and professional development. The initiative also includes the launch of a training package for teachers and school leaders, in cooperation with local and international partners to provide high-quality training to teachers and school administrators, she added.
Undersecretary of the Ministry of Education and Higher Education Dr. Ibrahim bin Saleh Al Nuaimi with other ministry officials during the meeting.
The second initiative, the Minister added, is “My School is My Community”, which is a multi-axis initiative focusing on all dimensions of the quality of student life and building an integrated personality. She said the third initiative is “Towards Excellence”, which will be implemented by designing different development paths for public schools, including performance improvement programmes and procedures that correspond to the needs of each school separately.
The Minister said that the fourth initiative is “School Change Leaders”, which aims to develop mechanisms to support and follow up the performance of schools, in accordance with the best practices of effective partnership between the Ministry and the educational field, and to build human and institutional capacities to support positive transformation efforts in schools.
She reiterated that these initiatives were designed under the leadership of experts and specialists in the Ministry, and with the participation of representatives from the field, including teachers, school principals and students.
The Minister congratulated everyone on the start of the new academic year, noting that the national education system, over the past twenty years, has gone through many changes that have added to it and enriched its experience, and this would not have been possible without the generous support of the State for the education sector, which this year received nearly QR17.8bn, representing 9 percent of the State’s budget.
The Minister explained that this amount is invested in serving more than 350,000 students, distributed to more than 500 public and private schools, in addition to the higher education students, whether scholarships abroad, or in national higher education institutions, which are 34 institutions and universities offering 378 academic programmes in various specialised educational tracks.
She said there are more than 33 research and scientific institutions, in diverse fields including environment, energy, medicine, entrepreneurship, computing, social, humanitarian and educational studies, technological innovations, and sustainable development. “Today, we have reached an advanced educational system, but we will not stop at this limit of development. We are looking forward to further achievement, excellence and quality, so that our outputs will be qualitative and achieve competitiveness,” the Minister said.
She added that during the FIFA World Cup Qatar 2022, Qatar will celebrate the 70th anniversary of the establishment of formal education.
The meeting included an interactive seminar that was presented by Acting Undersecretary for Higher Education, Dr. Khalid Al Ali; Assistant Undersecretary for Educational Affairs, Maha Al Ruwaili; Assistant Undersecretary for Special Education Affairs, Omar Al Nama; Assistant Undersecretary for Evaluation Affairs, Khalid Al Harqan; and Acting Assistant Undersecretary for Shared Services Affairs, Ali Al Buainain, where they all discussed Qatar’s interest in education and the importance of investing in it.
