Buainain pointed out that the registration of students in public schools and kindergarten has been resumed via the ‘Maarif’ portal that serves the public on the MoEHE website, calling on parents to capitalise on this online service to register their sons and daughters and fill out all the required forms. The MoEHE is highly committed to enhancing the life quality of students and to that end, it embarks upon launching a multitude of projects that primarily aim to polish students’ cultural and social skills to be armed with skills of the 21st century, Buainain underlined.
She affirmed that these carefully polished skills will help them succeed in their educational and career life, as the ministry strives to forge close partnership with parents, in pursuit of achieving an educational atmosphere that abounds with support and cooperation.
The new year preparations comprise a plethora of themes and initiatives and educational curricula as declared by the ministry starting from the new year 2024-2025. This comes in alignment with the third National Development Strategy 2024-2030. Additionally, the announcement of these updates is part of the ministry’s unwavering efforts to strike a balance between academic achievements and upgrading personal and psychosocial capabilities of students.
These updates are entangled with all academic classes such as kindergarten, secondary schools with a special emphasis on skills of the 21st century, such as digital competency, emotional intelligence and critical thinking, along with academic skills that essentially help advance students capabilities to be further applied in their daily life, in addition to keeping pace with best global practices in education and enhancing students’ physical and psychological health.
The updates in curricula comprise adjustments to some educational aspects, such as devoting free reading to kindergarten pupils in their early age and surge the span of sport activities, while in elementary schools the students’ capabilities will be enhanced in terms of linguistic and technical aspects. Moreover, in preparatory schools the students will overwhelmingly focus on reading and writing the Arabic language, in addition to including subjects that would meet their proclivities.
In the preparatory stage, teaching hours on Wednesday will be extended to match the rest of the week, so that the school day will continue until 1:30pm, except on Thursday, which will end at 12:40pm. This allows additional time to develop students’ skills and stimulate their creativity, while aligning with Qatar’s aspirations to enhance its educational system and improve its quality.
In the secondary stage, the school day will be extended until 1:30pm throughout the week to enhance students’ academic and practical skills, preparing them for success in their professional lives and for university education.
The ministry is currently organising the Back-to-School campaign in collaboration with Mowasalat (Karwa) and Msheireb Properties. The campaign aims to remind the public of and emphasise the importance of mental and emotional readiness for school, and to energise students to attend regularly and with enthusiasm from the first day. This will be achieved through various scientific, educational, interactive activities, as well as awareness workshops and purposeful sports events.
The arrangements included preparing the school environment, ensuring the school capacity, transportation and maintenance, canteen catering services tenders 2024, and follow-up plans on safety procedures in emergency situations.
They also included filling vacancies by appointing many teachers according to high standards, in terms of academic qualifications and practical experience, including graduates of the "Tamooh” programme implemented by the ministry in cooperation with Qatar University’s College of Education.
Several new specialised schools will be opened and many workshops and introductory, awareness and educational meetings will be held over the course of the year.
The MoEHE has provided those who have succeeded in high school and other targeted groups with distinguished educational opportunities for Qatari students within the government scholarship plan for the academic year 2024-2025. The plan includes three main programmes: the Amiri Scholarship Programme, the Internal Scholarship, and the External Scholarship, all of which aim to meet their needs at various academic levels and enhance their educational opportunities in various specialisations inside and outside Qatar.
Acting Assistant Undersecretary for Higher Education Affairs Dr Hareb Mohammed Al Jabri said the new government scholarship plan for the academic year 2024/2025 would offer 1,500 scholarships up from 700 the previous year. This is driven by an increase of educational tracks from three to eight tracks in a bid to meet all the Qatari labour market needs.
The preparations for the new academic year are being made in cooperation and coordination between the MoEHE and the Ministry of Interior to ensure the safety and security of students and smooth traffic flow. They extended to include libraries, which provided various types of stationery, bags and school supplies.
These early preparations confirm the great interest the state gives to education as the main important incubator for building the nation in line with Qatar National Vision 2030.