Minister wants children to play outdoors more
The Minister of State for Public Education is calling on parents to ban electronic games and encourage children to play outside more.
Jameelah Al Muhairi said modern technology was affecting children’s ability to explore outdoors, to take risks and to learn through experience.
Her comments came at the start of a conference to improve early learning across the UAE, attended by more than 1,000 teachers and leaders in education.
“We ask parents to ban their children from using electronic items with visual displays, but they don’t know how to keep them busy,” Mrs Al Muhairi said. “Parents need to be educated about the stages of a child’s development so they can come up with the right types of activities for them.
“When I was a child I played away from my parents with other children in our neighbourhood so much that my mother had to drag me back home.
“But today, children are dependent on adults for even the simplest things. This conference is a great opportunity to advance efforts to teach children during their most critical period of learning and development.”
The three-day conference started yesterday at the Teachers Training Institute in Ajman. It was organised with the UAE’s Supreme Council for Motherhood and Childhood, the International Bureau of Education and the UN Children’s Fund.
Experts from around the world also attended, including Prof Steven Barnett, director of the National Institute for Early Education Research in the United States, and Dr Mmantsetsa Marope, director of the Unesco International Bureau of Education.
Dr Marope said early childhood education was imperative in any society that wished to invest in the long-term success of its people.
Mrs Al Muhairi said the UAE needed to address a lack of qualified staff and low numbers of early learning centres.
“Our ambition here is to come up with a magical equation that will transform early childhood care and education in the UAE,” she said.
“One that will attain children’s happiness and well-being and simultaneously achieve a high standard in education outcomes so that children can reach their full potential.”
Mrs Al Muhairi launched initiatives at the conference to boost childhood learning. One scheme with the Ministry of Education and the French non-profit group Ensemble pour l’Education de la Petite Enfance – or Together for Early Childhood Education – will distribute videos to parents in the UAE showing how best to engage with their children and to assist in their learning.
She said her team was working on the early draft of a childhood education law and on training programmes to enhance teachers’ skills.
“We are also in the process of developing an integrative curriculum for kindergarten, first and second grades,” Mrs Al Muhairi said.
We ask parents to ban their children from using electronic items with visual displays JAMEELAH AL MUHAIRI Minister of State for Public Education