Sheikh Mansour bin Zayed, Vice President, Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of the Presidential Court, on Wednesday announced the launch of 11 new government schools to serve 28,000 pupils across the country.
The state-of-the-art schools – opened under the Zayed Educational Complex project – are at the heart of a major drive to boost public education standards nationwide.
Sheikh Mansour hailed the initiative as a “national achievement” during a tour of one of the sites in Fujairah.
The schools are to feature cutting-edge laboratories, as well as facilities for sports and arts.
Each school will have green spaces and at least 86 classrooms. Smart technology will also be available at the schools, which will focus on sustainability.
Each school is about four times the size of a typical public school, based on capacity, state news agency Wam reported.
More than 16,000 engineers, supervisors and workers were involved in the construction of the school buildings, to ensure they were ready to open for the new academic year.
The Zayed Educational Complex initiative was launched under the directive of President Sheikh Mohamed.
It is led by the Emirates Schools Establishment, which manages the country's public schools, in partnership with the Presidential Court and the Ministry of Energy and Infrastructure.
Sheikh Mansour visited the Zayed Educational Complex, in Mohamed bin Zayed Residential City, Fujairah, along with Suhail Al Mazrouei, Minister of Energy and Infrastructure, Sarah Al Amiri, Minister of State for Public Education and Advanced Technology and chairman of the Emirates School Education Foundation, and Sara Musallam, Minister of State for Early Education.
“Today we inaugurated the Zayed Educational Complex project, which bears the name of the Founding Father, the late Sheikh Zayed bin Sultan Al Nahyan, may God rest his soul, who founded our country on science and knowledge, and laid the first building block for an educational renaissance with a proactive vision,” Sheikh Mansour said.
The project is a “new national achievement”, Sheikh Mansour said. It is in line with the UAE's vision for education institutions to be “centres for creativity, innovation and the creation of future generations”, he said.
"We aim for our educational institutions to be beacons of knowledge, experience, and life, and a source of inspiration for generations," Sheikh Mansour said.
Sheikh Mansour was briefed on how more than 30 local authorities have come together to construct the high-tech sites over the past eight months.
UAE's public school strategy
The UAE announced a shake-up at the Ministry of Education in May 2022, with new ministers chosen to improve education at all levels.
Sarah Al Amiri, an engineer who has led the UAE Space Agency during historic missions, was given the task of shaping the future of public education in her latest ministerial role.
The UAE has called for a sharper focus on maths and science taught in English at a young age.
Ms Al Amiri spoke of a three-pronged approach to revamping public education, in comments made in June last year.
“We have three main priorities,” she said.
“Firstly, our priority is to ensure the learning outcome of every public school pupil at every level.
“Secondly, it's the teachers, teachers, teachers. They are the foundation to build a good education system and are needed at all levels.
“And, thirdly, it is the leadership team that supports teachers and pupils. They can ensure the proposed changes will be carried out effectively.”
Public schools are primarily for UAE citizens, but they also accept some children of residents.
Last year, the government said 10 schools would be taken over by private operators.
Ajyal Schools, or Generation Schools, will be operated by leading private sector education groups Taaleem, Aldar Education and Bloom Education, and serve about 14,000 pupils nationwide.
All 10 schools will be in the Northern Emirates and will switch to the US curriculum.
Within three years, 28 schools will be run under this public-private partnership.
The President's Cake
Director: Hasan Hadi
Starring: Baneen Ahmad Nayyef, Waheed Thabet Khreibat, Sajad Mohamad Qasem
Rating: 4/5
Tips for used car buyers
- Choose cars with GCC specifications
- Get a service history for cars less than five years old
- Don’t go cheap on the inspection
- Check for oil leaks
- Do a Google search on the standard problems for your car model
- Do your due diligence. Get a transfer of ownership done at an official RTA centre
- Check the vehicle’s condition. You don’t want to buy a car that’s a good deal but ends up costing you Dh10,000 in repairs every month
- Validate warranty and service contracts with the relevant agency and and make sure they are valid when ownership is transferred
- If you are planning to sell the car soon, buy one with a good resale value. The two most popular cars in the UAE are black or white in colour and other colours are harder to sell
Tarek Kabrit, chief executive of Seez, and Imad Hammad, chief executive and co-founder of CarSwitch.com
The lowdown
Badla
Rating: 2.5/5
Produced by: Red Chillies, Azure Entertainment
Director: Sujoy Ghosh
Cast: Amitabh Bachchan, Taapsee Pannu, Amrita Singh, Tony Luke
Museum of the Future in numbers
- 78 metres is the height of the museum
- 30,000 square metres is its total area
- 17,000 square metres is the length of the stainless steel facade
- 14 kilometres is the length of LED lights used on the facade
- 1,024 individual pieces make up the exterior
- 7 floors in all, with one for administrative offices
- 2,400 diagonally intersecting steel members frame the torus shape
- 100 species of trees and plants dot the gardens
- Dh145 is the price of a ticket
Mercer, the investment consulting arm of US services company Marsh & McLennan, expects its wealth division to at least double its assets under management (AUM) in the Middle East as wealth in the region continues to grow despite economic headwinds, a company official said.
Mercer Wealth, which globally has $160 billion in AUM, plans to boost its AUM in the region to $2-$3bn in the next 2-3 years from the present $1bn, said Yasir AbuShaban, a Dubai-based principal with Mercer Wealth.
“Within the next two to three years, we are looking at reaching $2 to $3 billion as a conservative estimate and we do see an opportunity to do so,” said Mr AbuShaban.
Mercer does not directly make investments, but allocates clients’ money they have discretion to, to professional asset managers. They also provide advice to clients.
“We have buying power. We can negotiate on their (client’s) behalf with asset managers to provide them lower fees than they otherwise would have to get on their own,” he added.
Mercer Wealth’s clients include sovereign wealth funds, family offices, and insurance companies among others.
From its office in Dubai, Mercer also looks after Africa, India and Turkey, where they also see opportunity for growth.
Wealth creation in Middle East and Africa (MEA) grew 8.5 per cent to $8.1 trillion last year from $7.5tn in 2015, higher than last year’s global average of 6 per cent and the second-highest growth in a region after Asia-Pacific which grew 9.9 per cent, according to consultancy Boston Consulting Group (BCG). In the region, where wealth grew just 1.9 per cent in 2015 compared with 2014, a pickup in oil prices has helped in wealth generation.
BCG is forecasting MEA wealth will rise to $12tn by 2021, growing at an annual average of 8 per cent.
Drivers of wealth generation in the region will be split evenly between new wealth creation and growth of performance of existing assets, according to BCG.
Another general trend in the region is clients’ looking for a comprehensive approach to investing, according to Mr AbuShaban.
“Institutional investors or some of the families are seeing a slowdown in the available capital they have to invest and in that sense they are looking at optimizing the way they manage their portfolios and making sure they are not investing haphazardly and different parts of their investment are working together,” said Mr AbuShaban.
Some clients also have a higher appetite for risk, given the low interest-rate environment that does not provide enough yield for some institutional investors. These clients are keen to invest in illiquid assets, such as private equity and infrastructure.
“What we have seen is a desire for higher returns in what has been a low-return environment specifically in various fixed income or bonds,” he said.
“In this environment, we have seen a de facto increase in the risk that clients are taking in things like illiquid investments, private equity investments, infrastructure and private debt, those kind of investments were higher illiquidity results in incrementally higher returns.”
The Abu Dhabi Investment Authority, one of the largest sovereign wealth funds, said in its 2016 report that has gradually increased its exposure in direct private equity and private credit transactions, mainly in Asian markets and especially in China and India. The authority’s private equity department focused on structured equities owing to “their defensive characteristics.”
