{"id":24827,"date":"2018-12-08T23:24:03","date_gmt":"2018-12-08T23:24:03","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/?p=24827"},"modified":"2018-12-08T23:24:03","modified_gmt":"2018-12-08T23:24:03","slug":"arab-countries-need-to-improve-education-systems-says-un-official","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/?p=24827","title":{"rendered":"Arab countries need to improve education systems, says UN official"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n

\nDUBAI:\u00a0Arab countries need to improve their education systems, a leading UN official has said, with only the UAE performing impressively in the sector.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\nHany Torky, the UNDP\u2019s chief technical adviser, said GCC countries were spending the same amount of money on education but only the UAE was making an impact.<\/p>\n

\n\u201cSo far the UAE has appeared as a leader in knowledge not just in the Arab countries but also across Asia. No other country has performed so well as the way UAE has done and continues to do that,\u201d he told Arab News. \u201cThe reason can be the quality of teachers, corruption, using resources in the right manner, quality of students. All these factors count for a lot.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

\nHe was speaking to Arab News while sharing the latest results of the Global Knowledge Index, which this year placed the UAE 19 out of 134 countries.\u00a0 It ranked 13 in pre-university education and 20 in higher education.<\/p>\n

\nTorky said the idea of education needed to be redefined in the region because of technological breakthroughs including artificial intelligence, virtual reality and coding.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n\u201cWe need to use technology to improve social and communication skills. Teachers cannot be replaced by robots. However, robots can help teachers to perform better.\u201d<\/p>\n

\nSaudi educationalist Omar Farooqi said a teacher\u2019s role would change dramatically and they would become more like guides or advisers.<\/p>\n

\n\u201cThe problem comes in the form of parents and top-to-bottom implementation of technology in schools,\u201d he told Arab News, \u201cotherwise if you look at the youth population in the Arab world, it is larger than the adult population. Therefore, these children have grown with technology in their hands and on their fingertips. They are more than willing to embrace it.\u201d<\/p>\n

\nThe UAE was quick to adopt technology and trends faster than anywhere else in the Arab world, he added, and technology was also a way to revamp the curriculum in public sector schools.<\/p>\n

\n\u201cThe Public (school) sector needs a complete revamp of standards from top to bottom of school operations. Private schools, on the other hand, are heavily geared primarily toward commercial success. Therefore the quality of education versus tuition fees is not appropriately balanced. Once it is balanced out, then there is cause for optimism for the private sector to take the lead in helping the public system set higher governance standards through strong strategic collaboration,\u201d said Farooqui.<\/p>\n

\nThe Global Knowledge Index is produced annually by the Mohammed Bin Rashid Foundation in partnership with the UNDP.\u00a0<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

DUBAI:\u00a0Arab countries need to improve their education systems, a leading UN official has said, with only the UAE performing impressively in the sector.\u00a0 Hany Torky, the UNDP\u2019s chief technical adviser, said GCC countries were spending the same amount of money on education but only the UAE was making an impact. \u201cSo far the UAE has…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10,"featured_media":24828,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-24827","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-middle_east_news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24827","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/10"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=24827"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24827\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/24828"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=24827"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=24827"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=24827"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}