Ministry vows quality education despite Covid-19

The Ministry of Education and Higher Education has confirmed that Qatar's private schools have their own distance learning programmes in line with each school's capabilities.
The ministry also affirmed its commitment to ensure that all students in Qatar receive quality education, and in accordance with appropriate alternatives under the current circumstances due to the coronavirus (Covid-19) pandemic. The ministry pointed to the emergence of several reasons behind the different plans for each private school when it came to distance learning, with the biggest reason being different curricula.
The ministry said that Qatar enjoys, through its private schools, close to 24 different curricula, including, but not limited to, the British, French, Finnish, Canadian, American, Indian, German, Spanish, Turkish, and Swiss, as well as the presence of schools offering the International Baccalaureate curriculum, and other national standards, in addition to the rest of the curricula belonging to the communities, where each curriculum has specific hours of study according to each subject and its educational system.
The Ministry of Education and Higher Education indicated that private schools that apply national standards can take what is applied in public schools with regard to distance learning, while adjusting for the difference between curricula.
The ministry noted that it seeks to provide appropriate support to all private schools in the event of any difficulties encountered, and said that it is currently working to support a number of these schools to raise their performance in distance learning, explaining that some community schools use TV stations.
The ministry recommended that private schools be flexible and balanced in applying distance learning, with a reduction in curricula that does not conflict with the amount of knowledge required, and in accordance with the approved educational system and curriculum, to ensure that a student's knowledge gap does not occur in the event of moving to higher classes later.
The ministry stressed that the distance learning process applied in each school requires the co-operation of all parties involved whether the student, the parents, or the school. The ministry added that there is also a need for continuous monitoring and evaluation of the systems for improvement, calling on schools and parents to work closely and open the channels of communication to benefit of students.
The ministry called on parents to constantly communicate with their children's schools to convey their observations and the difficulties their children face in using the system to find appropriate solutions. It is noteworthy that 90% of private schools in Qatar, according to the ministry, have distance learning programme.
Meanwhile, the Ministry of Education and Higher Education has published 336 educational videos, after implementing the system of distance learning in the first week of government school students returning to their studies remotely, as part of the state's precautionary decisions to maintain community safety from the spread of the Covid-19, and to facilitate all procedures to complete the educational process.
The ministry also stated that it is currently working to produce the lessons for the second week, and on setting the mechanism of work through distance learning, activating the platforms for that, and taking advantage of the services provided to students, including the creation of a virtual classroom for each subject that includes the class students and their teachers, and setting up the feature to browse electronic lessons and the supportive sources that the teachers raise in an orderly manner and refer to it when needed, in addition to assigning electronic assessments that are automatically corrected and providing free space for questions for the teachers during the virtual classroom.
The ministry indicated that it has implemented a set of procedures that will ensure the achievement of distance learning for students smoothly and easily, with the involvement of the departments of education, each in their field, noting that many measures that have been taken in this regard.
The ministry stated that it had prepared a set of guidelines for the distance learning mechanism for both the students, their parents and teachers that come in the form of videos and pamphlets.
In this context, the Department of Early Education at the Ministry of Education and Higher Education confirmed the completion of filming 120 educational videos, where 274 of them are supposed to be produced during the current period, while the number of videos published on the YouTube channel so far has reached 19 for the early education stage.