Qatar reiterates commitment to national, international education
Qatar has confirmed its commitment towards its pledge to the world in the field of education, where its constitution endorsed that education is the main pillar in the society and a basic right.
The country has given great importance through increasing its allocated budget to education to more than 13% of the gross domestic product (GDP), in addition to its continuous development of the educational and research centres and sources of soft power.
It also increased its interest in educating students with special needs through qualifying many schools to be integration centres for them and implementing a comprehensive system for evaluating students with special needs and launching a comprehensive database of their educational path.
At the Global Education Meeting, held currently in Brussels, HE the Minister of Education and Higher Education Dr Mohamed Abdul Wahed Ali al-Hammadi said Qatar started to shift to a knowledge-based economy as an enabling element of social and economic progress, part of Qatar National Vision 2030 which sets goals in sustainable development in all sectors.
With regards to Qatar’s global commitments, the minister said Qatar formed national committee for education in partnership with relevant ministries and entities. The committee also prepared different programmes to raise awareness on this goal, its purpose and indicators for all sectors of the state. Al-Hammadi said one of these programmes was the Right to Education held last October highlighting that Qatar was one of the first responders to the campaign, launched by the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation (Unesco), as well as linking the fourth goal with other sustainable development goals such as achieving equality and equal opportunities.
The curricula and educational programmes include understanding topics that serve issues related to climate change, peace, justice and co-existence, with keenness to promote innovation at the national and global levels, through many programmes including ‘Stars of Science’.
The minister said these efforts have had an impact on Qatar achieving good results in the educational field, according to the Global Competitiveness Index where in 2017/2018 it ranked fifth globally and first in the Arab region for the quality of education system. With regards to Qatar’s keenness to achieve further partnerships globally in supporting education, al-Hammadi said His Highness the Amir Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad al-Thani announced recently Qatar’s pledge to provide quality education to a million girls in areas of conflict by 2021, part of supporting the Charlevoix Declaration on Quality Education for Girls, Adolescent Girls and Women in Developing Countries.
The minister said the Educate a Child initiative to which Qatar was a main party, represented by Her Highness Sheikha Moza bint Nasser, Chairperson of Education Above All (EAA), has recently succeeded in supporting 10mn of the most marginalised out-of-school children to receive quality, primary education through 82 partnerships in 50 countries with $1.8bn. He said that Qatar contributed to third of the amount and continues its efforts to increase the number of children benefiting from the programme.
Al-Hammadi said Her Highness Sheikha Moza bint Nasser has had great contribution to issuing international resolution allowing refugee and displaced children to obtain accredited academic degrees and to continue their education from primary to the university level in host countries.
Despite the developmental results that Qatar has achieved in implementing the fourth goal of the sustainable development goals, it continues to exert its efforts to improve the results of Qatari students in international examinations, raise their academic achievement, improve early childhood education and develop human capital, to meet labour market requirements and national development priorities.
The minister stressed that everyone should make further efforts to achieve the fourth goal of sustainable development as effective means of achieving social and economic development.
Qatar’s participation in Global Education Meeting, which was due to conclude later yesterday, is part of the global Education 2030 Agenda supervised by Unesco, to discuss global progress towards achieving the fourth objective of sustainable development and the extent to which contributions have been made to ensure quality and inclusive education for all and to enhance lifelong learning opportunities.
The inaugural session of the meeting was launched by the Global Education Monitoring Report, which focuses mainly on the impact of migration and displacement on education and the importance of education in building bridges of knowledge.