Photo by Abdul Basit / The Peninsula
The Ministry of Education and Higher Education will focus on further improving the quality of education through its strategic plan 2023-30, a top official said.
“The strategy will cover students in all three school grades — primary, preparatory and secondary — in addition to kindergarten (KG),” said Undersecretary of the Ministry of Education and Higher Education Dr. Ibrahim bin Saleh Al Nuaimi.
Speaking to Qatar TV on Monday, he said an initiative will be launched to increase the number of students in KGs by creating awareness among parents that it is very important for their children in building a basis for higher classes.
“For students of three grades, initiatives like ‘My Skills My Future’ and ‘My School My Community’ will be launched for the health and well-being of students to improve their life quality through programmes of proper diets and sport activities,” said Al Nuaimi.
He said that the initiative ‘Madrasti Manara’ will help improve the performance of some schools by overcoming the challenges they are facing.
“Special programmes will be launched for students with disabilities, enabling them to serve the community actively after their graduation.”
Speaking about the achievements of the Ministry in equipping schools to accommodate a growing number of students, he said the number of students in government and private schools increased has significantly over the past decade.
“The number of students in government schools increased from 96,000 to 121,000 students during the ten years. The private schools also witnessed huge growth with the number of their students going up from 129,000 to 209,000 during the period.
“Schools operating in Qatar also witnessed a remarkable growth. The number of government schools increased from 178 in 2012-13 to 209 in 2022-23 academic year,” said the undersecretary.
Dr. Ibrahim bin Saleh Al Nuaimi
The number of private schools in Qatar jumped from 182 to 334 in ten years.
“Teachers in government schools increased from 12,000 to 14,000 including a good number of Qatari male and female qualified teachers,” said Al Nuaimi.
He said that the number of teachers in private schools also rose from 8,800 to 12,000 teachers.
“The Ministry received eight new school buildings in the current academic year 2022-23 including five new schools, and in three schools students were shifted from old school buildings,” said Al Nuaimi.
He said that the government schools received 14,500 new students in this academic year which shows significant growth following the Ministry’s vision to build schools across the country.
“About 900 new male and female teachers have been appointed for government schools in the current academic year.” He said one third of them, 300, are Qatari teachers and over 50 percent of them are expatriates residing in Qatar.
Speaking about the strategic plans of the Ministry, he said that the second strategy is going to end this month (December 2022). Under the current strategy, educational institutions were evaluated and curricula were developed upgrading all subjects.
“We also built Al Hedaya schools dedicated for students with disabilities. Now we are running six such schools accommodating a large number of students from this category,” said Al Nuaimi. He said that the strategy also gave top priority in instilling national identity, Islamic and local culture in students and the move will continue in the next strategy following Qatar National Vision 2030.
