In its efforts to promote extracurricular activities conducted by private schools across the Emirate of Abu Dhabi, the Abu Dhabi Education Council (ADEC) has introduced a new online system to approve extracurricular activities for schools. This comes in line with ADEC’s strategy to provide students with various learning experiences that help develop their potential & talents, gain more knowledge, and enrich their observation and investigation skills, while allowing them to pursue further education.
Eng. Hamad Al Dhaheri, ADEC’s Private Schools & Quality Assurance Executive Director said that the new online service is designed to promote a paperless work environment, assist schools to apply online and get prompt approvals on extracurricular activities, facilitate procedures related to submission of such applications and follow them up online.
Eng. Al-Dhaheri added that since January 2015, ADEC has asked all private schools wanting to conduct any extracurricular activity to submit their applications via email.
Guidelines governing private school applications to conduct extra-curricular activities have been developed to enable schools to submit the required documents allowing ADEC relevant teams to review such requests and communicate with concerned authorities to obtain the necessary approvals in light of the applicable bylaws & guidelines.
Since December 2015, the PSQA team has met with a number of principals, activity coordinators and school leaderships, who operate a chain of schools in Abu Dhabi to brief them on the proposed online system, review the new procedures and collect their feedback. Being its strategic partner, ADEC was keen to include feedback received from various schools in order to provide students with best learning opportunities and ensure their safety and security.
The new online service that will be launched officially on March 15th 2016 will allow schools to submit their applications through ADEC’s portal throughout trimesters.
Due to the existing online applications such as e-SIS and private school-based staff system, schools are no longer required to re-submit students or supervisors documents as applied earlier; they are however required to enter student/supervisor ID number’s and data saved in the system, that will be automatically released.
Eng. Al-Dhaheri pointed out that ADEC’s guidelines seek to organize extra-curricular activities, ensure students safety and security and protect parents’ rights, adding that ADEC has received a number of complaints from parents concerning individual cases of unacceptable practices which include safety and security issues, collecting unjustified fees as well as issues related to violation of UAE customs and traditions.
The new service will be posted on ADEC’s portal in Arabic and English; online technical assistance will be provided, while the new service manual will be sent to all schools. The new service will also allow schools to request prompt approvals where necessary.
In addition, the new service allows schools to apply for special requests that require PSQA’s Executive Director’s approval subject to terms and conditions that have been provided in the activities guide.
PSQA’s Executive Director lauded private schools for their strong commitment to the holistic development of the educational process and valued their efforts to achieving ADEC’s vision to providing students with high quality education. Eng. Al-Dhaheri urged schools to maintain their continuous cooperation and coordination with ADEC in order to ensure health & safety for students, while preserving rights of parents.
- ADEC
