Could do better: teachers want more detail on launch of licensing system

▶ Educators say the Ministry of Education is yet to provide the clear picture they need

Educators welcomed the first phase of the teachers licensing scheme that the Ministry of Education officially launched on Tuesday, but said they were still in the dark about details.

A number of teachers and principals working in ministry-curriculum private schools contacted said they had yet to receive instructions from the ministry detailing how to register their staff for the system.

“The problem is we don’t know any more information, it’s just headlines,” said a cluster manager of a ministry-curriculum school in Al Ain.

“We don’t know, so I think we have to wait for a bit to understand it.”

The manager said teachers at her school had not received any recent communications from the ministry about the new tests that they will have to pass to be licensed. Others contacted for comment shared similar sentiments.

On Tuesday, Minister of Education Hussain Al Hammadi announced that about 5,100 public high school teachers have been invited to register for the licence system this month.

Public school teachers working in Grades 10, 11 and 12 are being notified by a ministry email that prompts them to a website where they can enter their personal and professional details. These teachers will have to write a subject-knowledge exam in April and a professional-knowledge test in September. If they pass these two tests, they will earn their UAE teaching licences, which will be valid for between one and three years, depending on their performance, experience and education.

The ministry said private school teachers working in ministry-curriculum high schools are also being invited to take part in this first phase of the licensing, but that they were still in the process of collecting data from schools.

The scheme presented by the ministry was vastly different from pilot versions of the teacher-licensing project proposed last year by Abu Dhabi Department of Education and Knowledge and the Knowledge of Human Development Authority in Dubai.

Both Adek and KHDA have deferred all teacher-licensing questions to the ministry, which has now taken the lead on the project.

“The process of obtaining the licence is done by passing exams, which will be based on two tests, one specialised and the other is professional,” the minister said.

The ministry has a website –

The problem is we don’t know any more information, it’s just headlines

CLUSTER MANAGER Al Ain

tls.moe.gov.ae – to answer frequently asked questions.

Judith Finnemore, a managing consultant in the education division of Focal Point Management in Al Ain, said the licensing of teachers was excellent for the profession.

“Currently, there is such a wide variety of qualifications from all over the globe,” Ms Finnemore said. “Western ones are perceived to be of greater worthiness than others and this creates a two-tier system that is not necessarily fair.”

While it will raise standards, the licensing will ultimately lead to demands for pay equity, she said.

“A teacher from England, one from Tanzania and another from Pakistan will have met identical standards, so why should they be paid differently based on their nationality?” Ms Finnemore said.