The UAE suffered defeat in their final warm-up match before next month’s 2018 World Cup qualifiers, losing 2-0 to North Korea in Shanghai.
Mahdi Ali's men, who had Ali Mabkhout sent off, will not read too much into the result, though, since they were missing nine of their squad, with Al Ain and Al Nasr contesting the Asian Champions League quarter-finals this week. Those players, who include Omar Abdulrahman, meet up with the team in China on Friday.
The UAE begin the third and final qualification stage for Russia 2018 on September 1 against Japan in Saitama. They then face Australia, in Abu Dhabi, five days later.
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Education reform in Abu Dhabi
The emirate’s public education system has been in a constant state of change since the New School Model was launched in 2010 by the Abu Dhabi Education Council. The NSM, which is also known as the Abu Dhabi School Model, transformed the public school curriculum by introducing bilingual education starting with students from grades one to five. Under this new curriculum, the children spend half the day learning in Arabic and half in English – being taught maths, science and English language by mostly Western educated, native English speakers. The NSM curriculum also moved away from rote learning and required teachers to develop a “child-centered learning environment” that promoted critical thinking and independent learning. The NSM expanded by one grade each year and by the 2017-2018 academic year, it will have reached the high school level. Major reforms to the high school curriculum were announced in 2015. The two-stream curriculum, which allowed pupils to elect to follow a science or humanities course of study, was eliminated. In its place was a singular curriculum in which stem -- science, technology, engineering and maths – accounted for at least 50 per cent of all subjects. In 2016, Adec announced additional changes, including the introduction of two levels of maths and physics – advanced or general – to pupils in Grade 10, and a new core subject, career guidance, for grades 10 to 12; and a digital technology and innovation course for Grade 9. Next year, the focus will be on launching a new moral education subject to teach pupils from grades 1 to 9 character and morality, civic studies, cultural studies and the individual and the community.
