
In Conversation with Dr. Abdulla Al Karam on Dubai's Private Education Landscape (Part 3)
- Video / Webinar
Ashwin Assomull, Head of L.E.K.'s Global Education Practice, and Dr. Abdulla Al Karam, Director General of the Knowledge and Human Development Authority, share insights on how Dubai's education system navigated through the pandemic. Tune in as they unpack the strategic decisions informed by science, the dedication to sustaining the system and the unwavering commitment to quality education with health and safety at the forefront.
One of the things that we hear all over the world is this view that there's a shortage of teachers Yeah. And recruiting teachers is getting more challenging. And I I know that's that is an issue in some markets. Could you share some insights, some views on how KHDA makes it easier for teachers to move to Dubai? Or or what why is it that when I look at the the market for teachers, lots of people wanna come to Dubai?
Let me say something. Your education system is gonna be as good as your teachers, period. You can have the best infrastructure, you can have the best curriculum, you can have the best whatever it is. It's all about the teachers. Now we have the ability to attract teacher from the globe. Maybe before the pandemic, there was the top destinations where graduates or or teachers from Europe, from South Africa, Australia, Ireland, you call it.
Right.
They will work probably look at maybe five cities around the globe they wanna go to for the first maybe three, five years or something to experience the world. Know? So Dubai's always been in the top three all along until recently. After the pandemic, if you talk to any principals in the school in Dubai, they will tell you one thing. Their email is flooded with CVs. Now the choice is very clear.
Almost all the teachers, they want to come to Dubai.
Because for you to go to a certain city in the world, you most likely will teach most of the people on that place. Right.
When a teacher comes in from Europe or he come to Dubai, you are not going to teach. You're gonna teach the globe. You're gonna teach the rest of the world Yes. In a single classroom. Yeah.
And speaking to teachers, to people working in Dubai, people living in Dubai, and people who decided to move to Dubai during the pandemic. I think the way that the authorities handled the pandemic really reinforced Dubai as a place that people want to move to in across a bunch of sectors. Could you share some of your perspectives of how you helped your schools, your stakeholders, your students manage through that difficult time Sure. When we faced that crisis and pandemic?
You grow better and stronger when you go through those crisis. And I I said that in the economic crisis. I said that when this pandemic happened. I do remember the very few weeks into the pandemics where, you know, everybody was shut down.
Just few weeks. And I think we all had to make a decision of the way forward, but your decision has to be informed by science. Yes. Whether it's medical science or data science.
I mean, are the two people I know of that we were we're listening to. We had to make a decision.
Schools will be open in September.
Right? We don't know exactly how the details because we don't know what's gonna happen in the next two months, but we need to make sure it's open. And I think that decision plus the decision that was happened a year later where actually we have say, no, everybody go back in. The point was you have to keep the system going.
The kids need an education. Yes, health and safety is the number one, but we rely on systems where teachers come from abroad, parents and not, and I think we've seen that by opening, by having everybody else in it. I think now, when you're gonna see the international results coming in, I think now we will see the effect of the system that were closedonline for a longer period of time, and those who actually took the right decision at the right time.
Thank you Doctor. Dilleh for spending time with us, sharing those insights, those perspectives, and I think we're really looking forward to the upcoming years to see what will happen in the school system here in Dubai in terms of quality, which I know is so important to the KHDA, in terms of innovative and great supply, and the choice that we will continue to offer our parents, our teachers, our students, and all the other stakeholders that benefit from the system here.
I thank you. And I mean, I do want to say one thing that, you know, we have ten years ahead of us with the Dubai thirty three plan, and I think this is the ten years that will be maybe unlike any ten years. And I don't mean in size and growth and from quality of diversity. I think this is gonna be the golden ten years, at least to our generation. Yes. So I I do hope that, you know, you really gonna enjoy what's coming in the ten years, I think benefit from all what Dubai brings you the best and education at the same time.
Thank you. Thank you so much.