‘Too many tests, not enough art’ for pupils
Public schools need to include subjects such as music and physical education to produce well-rounded pupils, study says
ABU DHABI // Public school pupils face too many exams and assessments while physical education, art and music are neglected, researchers say.
A study by the Sheikh Saud bin Saqr Al Qasimi Foundation for Policy Research found that high school pupils were missing out on an all-round education.
“We wanted to emphasise the importance of art, music and PE in creating well- rounded students,” said researcher Susan Kippels.
Ms Kippels, Samar Farah and Dr Natasha Ridge, the foundation’s executive director, found the pupils had too much pressure from exams, with three national tests on top of those their schools set.
And while art and music are offered at primary and preparatory levels, they are not available in high school.
“With growing pressure to do well on national and international assessments, many students and teachers have no choice but to put a stronger emphasis on tests and passive learning than on new skills and active learning,” the researchers said in Curriculum Development in the UAE. “Education policymakers should work to alleviate this pressure and focus on how to help students and teachers maintain a balance between learning and assessments.”
The researchers also suggested developing a curriculum authority to oversee education reforms, rather than relying on experts from foreign countries.
“Nowhere is national identity more clearly defined than through a country’s public school curriculum,” they said. “External consultants cannot grasp the needs of the UAE, its vision, its goals and its moral foundations better than locals.
“If there were more local involvement in curriculum development in the future, many of these concerns could be diminished or mitigated.” While the Government has taken positive steps towards reforming the public school curriculum “there are still many issues to be addressed”, the researchers said.
“The main challenges that lie ahead include transforming the attitudes and approaches of teachers, expanding the scope of the curriculum content and designing appropriate assessment strategies,” the study said.
“Furthermore, local capacity must be expanded in order to ensure sustainability and suitability of curriculum reforms.”
The report, a follow- up to a policy brief published by the Dubai School of Government in 2009, traces the history of education reform in the UAE from 1953, when the first Kuwaiti mission opened a school in Sharjah.
The Ministry of Education was formed in 1972, but “schools in the UAE continued to follow a wide assortment of different curricula with varying standards, which were mostly borrowed from neighbouring countries”, the authors wrote.
It was not until 1985, with the adoption of the ministry’s national curriculum project, that the country began to move towards a unified Emirati public school curriculum.
English as the language of instruction for maths and science was introduced to select schools in 2007. Two years later the Abu Dhabi Education Council rolled out the bilingual education system across all of its public schools.
Since then, pace of education reform in the country intensified with the push for more science, technology, engineering and maths education.
“For anybody who’s looking at curriculum, we want them to be able to see this and reflect on what has already been done,” Ms Kippels said. “Moving forward, we can learn from lessons from the past.”
But for these reforms to be effective, the researchers said, teachers needed to be better equipped to meet evolving education objectives. “Moving away from a textbook-centred curriculum to a student-centred curriculum will require the ministry to provide teachers with rigorous training on the fundamentals of teaching, the scope of which must extend beyond typical pedagogical topics to enable teachers to independently develop instructional materials,” the researchers said.
“Unfortunately, many teachers are unlikely to substantially change their behaviour unless they are provided with appropriate incentives to do so.
“The current system does not yet reward student- centred teaching and this is unlikely to change unless there is an insistence on a change in teaching styles and in national assessments.”