Public ScHool kiDS To Team uP wiTH PuPilS of DeTerminaTion in SPorTS feST

DUBAI — Public school students in the UAE will soon be required to play sports and do teamwork with people of determination as part of a new education programme.

The director of the Education Affairs Office at the Abu Dhabi Crown Prince’s Court, Mohamed Al Neaimi, told Khaleej Times that the initiative, called Unified Champions School, will help create tolerance and teamwork among pupils.

The programme is in partnership with the Special Olympics World Games Abu Dhabi 2019, set to take place later this month. In the initiative’s pilot phase, schools and centres of people of determination will work together by playing sports.

“The programme will have three main components, which improve the environment through sports, making it more inclusive and tolerant. It will help students understand and learn that there are no differences between people of determination and other students, and we can do our activities with each other,” Al Neaimi said.

“We are starting a pilot programme this year and, hopefully, next year all public schools will adopt the activities. All private schools will have the information available on the Unified Champions website if they wish to implement it within their school. In other countries, they have a bigger number of people of determination in schools, here the numbers are much smaller. The model we are going to adopt here is that schools will team up with the centres, and they can then organise activities during the year and play together.”