Bildungsreformen in den Vereinigten Arabischen Emirate sind notwendig, um junge Menschen auf die Welt vorzubereiten.
UAE on right track in education and will be among top performers, says expert
Reforms to the educational system needed to prepare students for a
world
The UAE will be among the top performers in education if
it introduces reforms to the educational system to prepare students for a world
in which their lives will be affected by issues that transcend national
boundaries, a prominent educationist said on Monday.
"Success will go to
those individuals and nations that are swift to adapt, slow to complain, and
open to change. The task for educators and policy makers is to ensure that
countries rise to this challenge. In the global economy, the benchmark for
educational success is no longer merely improvement by local or national
standards, but the best performing education systems internationally," Andreas
Schleicher, Special Advisor on Education Policy to the Organisation for Economic
Co-operation and Development OECD’s Secretary-General and Deputy Director for
Education, told the majlis of His Highness Shaikh Mohammad Bin Zayed Al Nahyan,
Crown Prince of Abu Dhabi and Deputy Supreme Commander of the UAE Armed
Forces.
Schleicher stressed that now schools need to prepare students for
a world in which most people will need to collaborate with people of diverse
cultural origins, and appreciate different ideas, perspectives and values; a
world in which people need to decide how to trust and collaborate across such
differences; and a world in which their lives will be affected by issues that
transcend national boundaries.
“Increasingly diverse and interconnected
populations, rapid technological change in the workplace and in everyday life,
and the instantaneous availability of vast amounts of information mean that all
work that can be automated or digitized can now be done by the most effective
and competitive individuals or enterprises, wherever on the globe they are
located. Knowledge and skills have become the global currency in the 21st
century,” Schleicher said.
Schleicher argued that when you could still
assume that what you learned in school will last for a lifetime, teaching
content and routine cognitive skills was at the centre of education. Today,
where you can access content on Google, where routine cognitive skills are being
digitised or outsourced, and where jobs are changing rapidly, the focus is on
enabling people to become lifelong learners, to manage complex ways of thinking
and complex ways of working and to live in a multi-faceted world as active and
responsible citizens.
Schleicher said that placing a high value on
education is just part of the equation. "Another part is the belief in the
possibilities for all children to achieve. Interestingly, many of the world's
top performing school systems combine strong and equitable performance, in the
sense that students from all social backgrounds do well. High performing school
systems also share clear and ambitious standards across the board. Everyone
knows what is required to get a given qualification," Schleicher said.
He
added some of the world's most advanced education systems have far greater
levels of income inequality and social heterogeneity than, for example, the
United States. Their education systems are able to moderate inequalities because
they attract the most talented teachers to the most challenging classrooms and
the most capable school leaders to the most disadvantaged schools, thus
challenging all students with high standards and excellent teaching. They foster
new forms of educational provision that take learning to the learner in ways
that allow students from all backgrounds to learn in the ways that are most
conducive to their progress. The goal of the past was standardization and
conformity; now it’s about being ingenious, about personalizing educational
experiences.
Schleicher emphasied that modern education is about enabling
professional autonomy within a collaborative culture.
"In the old
bureaucratic education system, teachers were often left alone in classrooms with
a lot of prescription what to teach. The best performing education systems set
ambitious goals, are clear about what students should be able to do, and then
provide teachers with the tools to establish what content and instruction they
need to provide to their individual students. The past was about delivered
wisdom; the future is about user-generated wisdom."
In the past, the
policy focus was on the provision of education; today it's on outcomes, shifting
from looking upwards in the bureaucracy to looking outwards to the next teacher,
the next school.
Schleicher said the past emphasised school management;
now it is about leadership, with a focus on supporting, evaluating and
developing teacher quality as its core, which includes coordinating the
curriculum and teaching program, monitoring and evaluating teacher practice,
promoting teacher professional development and supporting collaborative work
cultures.