Insight and opinion from The National’s editorial leadership
January 04, 2022
Many of the children who went back to school in the UAE yesterday hardly remember life before the Covid-19 pandemic. The youngest pupils have come to know only a socially distanced school life that toggles between physical and virtual classrooms; the steady reintroduction of in-person teaching in the UAE and other countries is an effort at “back to normal” for parents and the school system, but a new normal for them.
Getting there is critical, given how many formative experiences young children have missed out on, but it is not without huge challenges. Two years on from the start of the pandemic, education in most countries remains a stop-start affair. Monday’s return to classes in the UAE was meant to be a fresh start in many ways – the start of a new year, a new term and a new Monday-to-Friday teaching schedule in most of the country’s schools. But as The National reported, more than 30 private schools in Dubai alone were forced to switch to distance learning for the next week, after several members of the schools’ communities had either tested positive for Covid-19 or come into close contact with someone who had. If the 2020-2021 school year was one of a great shift to remote learning, this year’s will be one of constant adapting and readapting to society’s unpredictable post-Covid-19 recovery.
Luckily few are better practiced at the art of adaptation than parents. When several staff members at Dubai College, one of the UAE’s oldest independent schools, tested positive this week, parents with professional teaching qualifications volunteered to cover their shifts. It is an extraordinary example of the kind of sacrifices and efforts being made by parents all over the country to maintain their children’s education and well-being throughout constant shifts in school and work schedules over the course of the pandemic.
Few are better practiced at the art of adaptation than parents
In Abu Dhabi, private schools announced a switch to distance learning for at least the first two weeks of the new term, with the hope of a return to classrooms when the current wave of the pandemic subsides. School administrators and education authorities in the emirate have put in place new safeguards to ensure students’ health when they return.
For instance, the Al Hosn app, the mobile phone application used to record UAE residents’ vaccinations, PCR tests and green passes, now provides parents with information on the vaccination rates of the student body at their children’s school. A colour-coded grading system, based on the vaccination levels, regulates to what extent schools can switch back to in-person education and what activities will be allowed when they do. For instance, schools with fewer than 65 per cent of students vaccinated may only hold grade-level events (e.g. events for all fifth-graders), whereas those with more than 85 per cent vaccinated can hold school-wide events, like assemblies.
Getting education back to a place where children can live normal childhoods without putting themselves or their parents and teachers at risk is, clearly, fraught with challenges. Raising children – pandemic or no pandemic – tends to be that way. But success is the result of the community – parents, teachers, school administrators and government officials – pulling together in children’s best interests. Judging by the way school communities have pulled together in the UAE in recent months, prospects for the country’s students appear promising.
FIXTURES
Thu Mar 15 – West Indies v Afghanistan, UAE v Scotland
Fri Mar 16 – Ireland v Zimbabwe
Sun Mar 18 – Ireland v Scotland
Mon Mar 19 – West Indies v Zimbabwe
Tue Mar 20 – UAE v Afghanistan
Wed Mar 21 – West Indies v Scotland
Thu Mar 22 – UAE v Zimbabwe
Fri Mar 23 – Ireland v Afghanistan
The top two teams qualify for the World Cup
Classification matches
The top-placed side out of Papua New Guinea, Hong Kong or Nepal will be granted one-day international status. UAE and Scotland have already won ODI status, having qualified for the Super Six.
Thu Mar 15 – Netherlands v Hong Kong, PNG v Nepal
Sat Mar 17 – 7th-8th place playoff, 9th-10th place playoff
The biog
Full name: Aisha Abdulqader Saeed
Age: 34
Emirate: Dubai
Favourite quote: "No one has ever become poor by giving"
Some of Darwish's last words
"They see their tomorrows slipping out of their reach. And though it seems to them that everything outside this reality is heaven, yet they do not want to go to that heaven. They stay, because they are afflicted with hope." - Mahmoud Darwish, to attendees of the Palestine Festival of Literature, 2008
His life in brief: Born in a village near Galilee, he lived in exile for most of his life and started writing poetry after high school. He was arrested several times by Israel for what were deemed to be inciteful poems. Most of his work focused on the love and yearning for his homeland, and he was regarded the Palestinian poet of resistance. Over the course of his life, he published more than 30 poetry collections and books of prose, with his work translated into more than 20 languages. Many of his poems were set to music by Arab composers, most significantly Marcel Khalife. Darwish died on August 9, 2008 after undergoing heart surgery in the United States. He was later buried in Ramallah where a shrine was erected in his honour.
You can donate to several registered charities through a “donation catalogue”. The use of the donation is quite specific, such as buying a fan for a poor family in Niger for Dh130.
The site has an e-donation service accepting debit card, credit card or e-Dirham, an electronic payment tool developed by the Ministry of Finance and First Abu Dhabi Bank.
You can donate online or order Smiles n’ Stuff products handcrafted by Al Noor students. The centre publishes a wish list of extras needed, starting at Dh500.
Beit Al Khair Society has the motto “From – and to – the UAE,” with donations going towards the neediest in the country. Its website has a list of physical donation sites, but people can also contribute money by SMS, bank transfer and through the hotline 800-22554.
Dar Al Ber Society, which has charity projects in 39 countries, accept cash payments, money transfers or SMS donations. Its donation hotline is 800-79.
Dubai Cares provides several options for individuals and companies to donate, including online, through banks, at retail outlets, via phone and by purchasing Dubai Cares branded merchandise. It is currently running a campaign called Bookings 2030, which allows people to help change the future of six underprivileged children and young people.
Those who travel on Emirates have undoubtedly seen the little donation envelopes in the seat pockets. But the foundation also accepts donations online and in the form of Skywards Miles. Donated miles are used to sponsor travel for doctors, surgeons, engineers and other professionals volunteering on humanitarian missions around the world.
On the Emirates Red Crescent website you can choose between 35 different purposes for your donation, such as providing food for fasters, supporting debtors and contributing to a refugee women fund. It also has a list of bank accounts for each donation type.
Gulf for Good raises funds for partner charity projects through challenges, like climbing Kilimanjaro and cycling through Thailand. This year’s projects are in partnership with Street Child Nepal, Larchfield Kids, the Foundation for African Empowerment and SOS Children's Villages. Since 2001, the organisation has raised more than $3.5 million (Dh12.8m) in support of over 50 children’s charities.
Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum launched the Noor Dubai Foundation a decade ago with the aim of eliminating all forms of preventable blindness globally. You can donate Dh50 to support mobile eye camps by texting the word “Noor” to 4565 (Etisalat) or 4849 (du).
