Teachers need good conduct certificate
KHDA SAYS THE MOVE IS PART OF WIDER MEASURES TO IMPROVE TEACHER PROFILE AND STANDARDS IN DUBAI
KHDA’s qualifications chief says move part of wider measures to improve teacher profile and standards |
Schoolteachers in Dubai will need to get a good conduct certificate from the previous country they worked in, as part of requirements to be a licensed teacher in Dubai, a senior official said yesterday.
Dr Naji Al Mahdi, chief of qualifications and awards in Dubai at Knowledge and Human Development Authority (KHDA), said the certificate will be part of requirements to obtain a teacher ‘permit’ in Dubai.
The permit in Dubai will be given by the KHDA after fulfilling, among other KHDA requirements, a federal UAE teacher licence given by the Ministry of Education, he added.
Dr Al Mahdi’s comments came during the Ipsef (International and Private Schools Education Forum) Middle East 2018 yesterday in Dubai.
‘Ensuring safe people’
Speaking during his talk on the Dubai teacher permit, he said the good conduct certificate’s requirement is part of wider measures to improve the qualifications and profile of teachers in Dubai.
“A teacher or school leader who wants to work in any school in Dubai have to get an approval from the KHDA. This is for a number of good reasons. One is to ensure when a teacher joins a school, they are competent enough to teach their own subject, and they are suitable enough to be in a school. We would require things like police reports [of good conduct],” Dr Al Mahdi said.
“If they are an expat, if they are working in country A or country B, and now they came here [to Dubai], we require a good conduct certificate from country B and maybe from their country of origin. We are trying to basically ensure that safe people are working with our students. That’s very important for us.”
After his talk, he told reporters on the sidelines of Ipsef: “For new and existing teachers, even at the time of renewals [of permits], it [good conduct certificate] will be asked because ■
teachers work in 206 schools in Dubai
female and 19% male teachers in schools
it is something we want to do in an ongoing manner, rather than one-off. Nowadays, these certifications are available online and they just have to write to the authority. For instance, in Dubai you get them within 48 hours. So it’s not really something big to ask.”
He added that the certificate would be from “the country that they last worked in, basically. So, let us say, an Indian who worked in Singapore for ■ the last three or four years — we need to know it from Singapore, what they say about him or her.”
Dr Al Mahdi said there are around 21,000 teachers in over 200 private schools in Dubai — one of the highest concentrations of international private schools in the world. Teachers in Dubai come from over 180 countries, bringing a myriad of teaching backgrounds with them, he added.
Teacher licence
According to figures shown in Dr Al Mahdi’s presentation, only 10 per cent of teachers in Dubai have some kind of internationally-recognised teacher ‘licence’ or certification — most have qualifications only in their class subject.
He pointed out that all teachers in the UAE will need a teacher licence by 2021; those in Dubai will also need a teacher permit by 2021.
In April, more than 5,200 teachers and educational leaders sat for tests as part of the first phase of the Teachers Licensing System (TLS) run by the Ministry of Education. There are 70,845 education professionals employed in the country, according to ministry’s figures.