ABU DHABI // Special needs pupils are not getting the help they need at school because their parents are sending nannies with them, not trained teaching assistants, to save money.
All schools are required by law to cater for pupils with mild to moderate special needs, but families have to pay the support costs in private schools.
“You have an untrained shadow teacher who can’t really switch off his or her role and is still the maid or the nanny in the classroom,” said Renate Baur-Richter, programme manager at the Services for Educational Development, Research and Awareness organisation. “This doesn’t really help the student, the family, the teacher, the class or the entire school.”
The organisation, founded in 2014 under the patronage of Sheikha Alyazia bint Saif Al Nahyan to promote inclusion of people with disabilities, has linked up with the British University in Dubai to offer a shadow teacher qualifications course.
“The best solution would be put more teachers in the classrooms and put a co-teacher in the classroom so no shadow teachers are needed,” Ms Baur-Richter said.
“But you also have to have the socio-economic situation of the families in mind, since they have to pay, so you have to work with the resources they have.”
Jeff Evans, managing director of Learning Key Educational Consultancy, said: “Recruiting and employing a trained special educational needs assistant will require a higher salary than the additional fees that private schools are permitted to charge parents for extra support.”
Abu Dhabi Education Council lets private schools charge parents up to 50 per cent more to cover special education.
“However in many schools, even in the high-fee range, this will not cover the cost of employing a skilled assistant or teacher,” Mr Evans said. “So a child with mild to mid-level needs may have in-class support that is not really suitable.
“And in some cases, the learning and welfare of other class members and the child with additional needs are affected.”
Hanadi Dar, from Dubai’s Camali Clinic, a child and mental health service, supplies trained and some university-educated shadow teachers for parents.
But the Dh8,500 monthly cost often scared off clients.
“I have a file full of parents saying, ‘the price is too much and I can’t go for that’,” said Ms Dar. “But the shadow needs to make the child independent, to work towards independence, to learn independent living skills.”
“What needs to be changed is that shadow teacher should be a qualification rather than just a job for the jobless,” said Prof Eman Gaad, dean of the British University’s faculty of education and head trainer at its partner association.
rpennington@thenational.ae
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Know your cyber adversaries
Cryptojacking: Compromises a device or network to mine cryptocurrencies without an organisation's knowledge.
Distributed denial-of-service: Floods systems, servers or networks with information, effectively blocking them.
Man-in-the-middle attack: Intercepts two-way communication to obtain information, spy on participants or alter the outcome.
Malware: Installs itself in a network when a user clicks on a compromised link or email attachment.
Phishing: Aims to secure personal information, such as passwords and credit card numbers.
Ransomware: Encrypts user data, denying access and demands a payment to decrypt it.
Spyware: Collects information without the user's knowledge, which is then passed on to bad actors.
Trojans: Create a backdoor into systems, which becomes a point of entry for an attack.
Viruses: Infect applications in a system and replicate themselves as they go, just like their biological counterparts.
Worms: Send copies of themselves to other users or contacts. They don't attack the system, but they overload it.
Zero-day exploit: Exploits a vulnerability in software before a fix is found.
It's up to you to go green
Nils El Accad, chief executive and owner of Organic Foods and Café, says going green is about “lifestyle and attitude” rather than a “money change”; people need to plan ahead to fill water bottles in advance and take their own bags to the supermarket, he says.
“People always want someone else to do the work; it doesn’t work like that,” he adds. “The first step: you have to consciously make that decision and change.”
When he gets a takeaway, says Mr El Accad, he takes his own glass jars instead of accepting disposable aluminium containers, paper napkins and plastic tubs, cutlery and bags from restaurants.
He also plants his own crops and herbs at home and at the Sheikh Zayed store, from basil and rosemary to beans, squashes and papayas. “If you’re going to water anything, better it be tomatoes and cucumbers, something edible, than grass,” he says.
“All this throwaway plastic - cups, bottles, forks - has to go first,” says Mr El Accad, who has banned all disposable straws, whether plastic or even paper, from the café chain.
One of the latest changes he has implemented at his stores is to offer refills of liquid laundry detergent, to save plastic. The two brands Organic Foods stocks, Organic Larder and Sonnett, are both “triple-certified - you could eat the product”.
The Organic Larder detergent will soon be delivered in 200-litre metal oil drums before being decanted into 20-litre containers in-store.
Customers can refill their bottles at least 30 times before they start to degrade, he says. Organic Larder costs Dh35.75 for one litre and Dh62 for 2.75 litres and refills will cost 15 to 20 per cent less, Mr El Accad says.
But while there are savings to be had, going green tends to come with upfront costs and extra work and planning. Are we ready to refill bottles rather than throw them away? “You have to change,” says Mr El Accad. “I can only make it available.”
Company%20Profile
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From Zero
Artist: Linkin Park
Label: Warner Records
Number of tracks: 11
Rating: 4/5
How to wear a kandura
Dos
- Wear the right fabric for the right season and occasion
- Always ask for the dress code if you don’t know
- Wear a white kandura, white ghutra / shemagh (headwear) and black shoes for work
- Wear 100 per cent cotton under the kandura as most fabrics are polyester
Don’ts
- Wear hamdania for work, always wear a ghutra and agal
- Buy a kandura only based on how it feels; ask questions about the fabric and understand what you are buying
Juliot Vinolia’s checklist for adopting alternate-day fasting
- Don’t do it more than once in three days
- Don’t go under 700 calories on fasting days
- Ensure there is sufficient water intake, as the body can go in dehydration mode
- Ensure there is enough roughage (fibre) in the food on fasting days as well
- Do not binge on processed or fatty foods on non-fasting days
- Complement fasting with plant-based foods, fruits, vegetables, seafood. Cut out processed meats and processed carbohydrates
- Manage your sleep
- People with existing gastric or mental health issues should avoid fasting
- Do not fast for prolonged periods without supervision by a qualified expert
COMPANY PROFILE
Founders: Alhaan Ahmed, Alyina Ahmed and Maximo Tettamanzi
Total funding: Self funded
