The biggest-ever national brainstorming session to develop health and education

Call for the largest national brainstorming session

H. H. Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum, Vice-President and Prime Minister of the UAE and Ruler of Dubai, called upon the citizens to join the largest national brainstorming session to promote fresh thinking and innovation in generating ideas for developing the health and education sectors.

Through his Twitter account, Sheikh Mohammed said: “We want every man, woman and child to join us in the biggest ever national brainstorming session to find new ideas for health and education.” He announced a Cabinet retreat dedicated to the further development of the health and education sectors in the country.

Sheikh Mohammed tweeted: “Embodying dynamic, energetic and successful leadership, please submit suggestions at http://www.uaepm.ae, email video comments to brainstorming@uaepm.ae, and tweet ideas to #uaebrainstorm.”

Earlier, Sheikh Mohammed had directed that representatives of teachers, doctors, nurses, students and parents should take part in the next Cabinet retreat, designed to convey opinions on all the ideas and initiatives to be discussed by the Cabinet.

Since Sheikh Mohammed assumed office as Vice-President and Prime Minister of the UAE, the entire concept of governance has changed through the innovative outdoor Cabinet meetings held in 2007 at Bab Al Shams desert resort in Dubai and Dhadna in Fujairah. The objective of holding such a retreat reflects his keenness to adopt a flexible approach in public administration and enable it to swiftly advance into the future.

Innovative ideas and suggestions received

A wealth of new ideas submitted to the Emirati brainstorming initiative to bolster health and education development will be considered to encourage the government to work to meet the needs and aspirations of the country, said Sheikh Mohammed.

This came during Sheikh Mohammed’s review of ideas, proposals and posts received through his site and through social networking sites within the UAE brainstorming initiative that was allocated to assemble the largest possible number of ideas and creative solutions for the development of health and education sectors in the state.

Outcome

The Cabinet’s talks based on the results of the national brainstorming initiative took place over the course of two days; the first day examined ideas to develop the education sector whereas the second day tackled the issue of developing the health care sector.

The UAE Cabinet retreat endorsed a number of initiatives and ideas on overhauling the education system and development of teacher, being a cornerstone of the educational system.  

Called for by Sheikh Mohammed, the Cabinet retreat started on Sunday at Sir Bani Yas Island in Abu Dhabi to discuss creative ideas for developing the health and education sectors. The Cabinet’s extraordinary session drew overwhelming popular participation through 65,000 public feedback, ideas and suggestions received via social media platforms and the Prime Minister's website. 

The Cabinet’s first day session focused on the education sector. Representatives of teachers, students, guardians, school principals and administrators, educators and specialists were engaged in the first brainstorming session, which was dedicated to examining suggestions and ideas on education that classified into five broad categories.

The first category focused on teachers in terms of efficiency, competency and adding advantage to the career itself. The second category looked into developing teaching methods, integrating technology and applying best standards in this field. The third category shed light on enhancing the skills of students on par with their peers in developed countries. The fourth category examined means to improve ratios of students who complete high school, university and postgraduate studies. Finally, the fifth category looked at aligning education outcomes with present and future requirements of the different sectors of the economy. 

On the second day of the retreat, the cabinet tackled the issue of health care and discussed the ideas and suggestions placed in this regard. After reviewing 65,000 suggestions from the public on how to improve the nation’s education system, the Cabinet adopted a range of measures including:

• Scrapping the preparatory year at university and developing subjects at secondary school level to match university requirements.
• Making teaching a more attractive option, with career progression and incentives.
• A licensing system, similar to that in western countries, for those who want to become teachers.
• A new system for evaluating and ranking universities.
• After reviewing 65,000 suggestions from the public on how to improve the nation’s education system, the Cabinet adopted a range of measures including:
• Scrapping the preparatory year at university and developing subjects at secondary school level to match university requirements.
• Making teaching a more attractive option, with career progression and incentives.
• A licensing system, similar to that in western countries, for those who want to become teachers.
• A new system for evaluating and ranking universities.
• Assessment of educational performance at nurseries.
• Ridding the need for students to choose between science and arts streams early in secondary school.
• After reviewing 65,000 suggestions from the public on how to improve the nation’s education system, the Cabinet adopted a range of measures including:
• Scrapping the preparatory year at university and developing subjects at secondary school level to match university requirements.
• Making teaching a more attractive option, with career progression and incentives.
• A licensing system, similar to that in western countries, for those who want to become teachers.
• A new system for evaluating and ranking universities.
• Assessment of educational performance at nurseries.
• Ridding the need for students to choose between science and arts streams early in secondary school.

Ministerial retreat initiatives for education

A number of educational initiatives were announced and endorsed by the Cabinet during its retreat at Sir Bani Yas Island:

• Launch of the teacher career progress and development system, and career advancement measures for teachers in order to make the profession attractive, encourage competition, excellence, and achieve job satisfaction for teachers
• Study to abolish the system of branching for the literary and science sections, and shifting to the educational system that combines compulsory and optional subjects for students in order to keep pace with the world's growing knowledge and rapid technological developments
• Launch of system to evaluate schools and publish detailed reports on the academic performance to increase competitiveness among the schools and assist the school administrations to specify areas they need improvement periodically
• A programme to attract distinguished graduates to teaching to ensure employment of talented cadres given importance of teacher in terms of education feedback
• A specialised training programme for teachers to improve their skills and keep pace with the latest teaching methods, as well as teaching subjects on culture, innovative and creative skills, arts, music and sports.
• Cancellation of a preparatory year at universities through development of subjects at the secondary school level to match the university requirements
• A project to classify and evaluate public and private universities in the UAE as per unified standards. Periodic reports on the evaluation will be published periodically
• Creation of subjects to develop the leadership and life skills for students
• Endorsement of licensing system for teachers in accordance with the certified standards
• Evaluation of educational performance at public and private kindergartens, being the cornerstone of education system
• Provision of electronic platform on the curricula in form of video lessons to help in self-education and fight the private tuitions
• Setting of full system to detect talented students to develop them
• Launch of the academic guide system for students to help them choose future academic specialisation in a way that matches requirements of national economy. 

Ministerial retreat initiatives for health

While chairing the retreat, Sheikh Mohammed said that the doors of the government as well as minds and hearts of officials are open throughout the year are open for feedback, suggestions and observations from the public. The delivery of better medical services is a joint task for the federal and local governments and the private sector, he noted. The special 'government innovation laboratory' which was part of the cabinet retreat, studied suggestions put forward for developing the health care sector.

The health sector initiatives focused on five categories. The first category included raising the quality of health care services for the public and private sector. The second category examined the issue of raising the efficiency and competence of the health care staff, while promoting careers in health care. The third category examined developing the specialised medical services across the country. The fourth category examined suggestions to catalyse change into lifestyle patterns to improve general health. Finally, the fifth category discussed measures to limit the spread of diseases within society.

After intensive debate, the extraordinary ministerial retreat approved the following health initiatives:

• Launching an e-healthcare programme to deliver primary health care services to remote regions, especially to elderly people
• Launching a system to evaluate hospitals and health clinics and measure customer satisfaction and success of surgeries
• Approving of a comprehensive regular screening programme for every citizen so as to enhance prevention
• Preparing a professional organisational structure for the government health sector and developing career path plans to make the profession more attractive
• Standardising benchmarks of accrediting doctors and healthcare professionals across the State
• Introducing unified national standards for the quality of health services
• Launching an early cancer detection programme
• Establishing a national data base for medical records to allow easy referral of patients between government and private hospitals
• Approving a package of measures to address obesity and promote healthy lifestyles (limiting the size of fizzy drinks, imposing controls on advertisement of unhealthy foods and showing calories of food items etc)
• Setting a strategy for establishing R&D centres in partnership with academic institutions
• Establishing a national cancer registry
• Launching the UAE Board to become a reference for all medical specialisations
• Setting up a world-class technical centre for continuous training of health professionals
• Launching a stimulus programme to attract more Emiratis to the nursing profession
• Implementing an integrated programme to promote public awareness about healthy lifestyle in order to increase prevention
• Introducing and implementing common standards for healthy food in all government and private schools.