UAEU celebrates the Emirati Children’s Day

Al Ain, 14 March 2022: The United Arab Emirates University ‎celebrates Emirati Children’s Day which is recognized on the 15^th of March each year. This event aims to raise public awareness of children’s rights and welfare in order to maximise child wellbeing through the promotion of healthy, safe and supportive environments.

The College of Education (CEDU) at United Arab Emirates University leads the field in childhood research. Faculty at CEDU are committed to conduct research in key areas which link to improving educational outcomes for the children of the UAE. Within the College, there are many high-profile collaborations with world leading universities to investigate important areas of childhood and education, which can be used to inform policy and positively impact educational experience for young children. Two of these high-profile collaborations are described below.

Dr Rachel Takriti, Associate Professor of Early Childhood Education and Chair of the Curriculum and Instruction Department is leading one of these projects. The ‘SciKids’ Project is a collaboration with Oxford University, which aims to train KG teachers to teach science in a new and innovative way focused on teaching about how science works in the real world.  This is known as “Nature of Science” (NOS). Including NOS in science education, is a crucial component for developing students’ scientific literacy, helping them to understand science in such a way as to facilitate informed decision making in their everyday lives. The KG children of today will be the adults of tomorrow. It is important that they have the understanding to be able to make informed decisions and valid judgments, as well as to have the capability to defend and justify those. The SciKids project aims to assess the nature of science teaching in early years education in the UAE, to design, implement and assess provide targeted instruction and workshops for teachers to increase their understanding of NOS and to provide strategies for them to use in the classroom with young children.

Dr Rhoda Myra Garces-Bacsal, the Assistant Dean for Research and Graduate Studies and Associate Professor in the Department of Special Education, is leading a project with University College London (UCL) entitled ‘Educating Young People of Determination in Mainstream Schools: An Examination of Inclusive, High-Leverage, and Culturally Responsive Practices in the UAE’. This is the first baseline/benchmarking, multi-method study of its kind to examine in-service teachers’ and school leaders’ comprehensive understanding of inclusion within their mainstream school context, and challenges encountered in policy implementation across public and private school settings in Cycles 1-3 throughout the seven Emirates.  In this project researchers are using the special educational needs and disabilities (SEND) Reflection Framework as developed in the United Kingdom for inclusive schools and examining whether High-Leverage Practices (HLPs) and culturally responsive practices are being used in UAE schools.