Fujairah girl is UAE winner of Arab Reading Challenge
Hafsa Al Dhanhani will next week compete for title of overall winner
The UAE winner of this year’s Arab Reading Challenge is Hafsa Al Dhanhani.
Hafsa is a Grade 10 pupil at Murbah Secondary School for Girls in Fujairah – about 27 kilometres north of Fujairah town centre.
Judges said the Emirati won because of her interesting book choices, her excellence in critiquing them, her self-confidence and her ability to showcase her character, culture and personality.
Hafsa, 15, now goes on to compete against 15 other pupils from the Arab world for the title of overall winner. This will be announced at the main awards ceremony to be held at Dubai Opera next week. Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid, Vice President and Ruler of Dubai, congratulated Hafsa and the other participants yesterday.
“We are proud of the over 300,000 UAE students who participated in the challenge, and congratulate the winner Hafsa Al Dhanhani,” Sheikh Mohammed said. “The more our children read, the more optimistic our future becomes.”
The Arab Reading Challenge involves participants reading 50 Arabic books a year, and Sheikh Mohammed said about seven million pupils had taken part this year – up from 3.5 million in 2016. About 318,000 pupils from more than 900 UAE schools competed –double the amount from last year.
Amina Al Sakb from the Ras Al Khaimah Education Zone won the distinguished supervisor award, while the Emirates National School in Abu Dhabi was honoured as the UAE’s best school.
Ms Al Sakb won because of her “unwavering commitment to the challenge” and her careful follow-ups with other supervisors and pupils in Ras Al Khaimah. Ms Al Sakb also designed an electronic system to follow up with teachers and used social media to raise awareness of the challenge. The Emirates National School, meanwhile, also developed an electronic platform for pupils.
Next week’s Dubai Opera event will see the top school and highest-ranking pupils honoured with prize money of about $3 million (Dh11m).
“We will celebrate next week, at the Dubai Opera, the seven million students, 40,000 schools and 75,000 supervisors who participated in the Arab Reading Challenge across the Arab World,” Sheikh Mohammed said.
At last year’s ceremony, Sheikh Mohammed predicted the numbers participating in the challenge would rise, and that has now been borne out by the latest figures. The longterm goal of the challenge is to encourage all pupils across the Arab World to read, as well as Arab pupils in foreign countries.
The Minister of Education, Hussain Al Hammadi, said: “The main objective of the challenge is to support an educated, tolerant and open-minded generation of Arabs who are accepting of others.
“Reading is an essential tool in achieving this.”