Khalifa Award invited educational field professionals to nominate for the eighteenth session 2024-2025
“Khalifa Awards”: Fostering the culture of excellence while advancing the education system internationally and locally
Amal Al-Afeefi: Wide interaction from teachers, parents and community institutions was witnessed in the current session workshops
Abu Dhabi: Saturday, September 21, 2024
The General Secretariat of the Khalifa Award for Education underlined that excellence represents one of the key components of the education system in the United Arab Emirates and at the local and international levels, especially in light of the technological and scientific development witnessed by the era in all aspects of the educational process, which makes providing teachers and students modern skills a basic pillar in achieving the desired excellence in various educational institutions.
From its inception in 2007 till now, the General Secretariat of the Award noted that the message of the Khalifa Award for Education has been to consolidate excellence in the educational and intellectual sphere and to create an environment that fosters creativity, leadership and innovation. Through its suggested fields and categories in the several sessions, the award aims to disseminate the culture of excellence in the field among many components of the educational process, including students, instructors, administrators, parents and institutions connected to educational affairs. The Award has been successful in creating a large base of outstanding academics on the local, Arab, and international levels.
Aiming to introduce the fields proposed during the current session the with the participation of an elite group of judges and winners as well as possible candidates from the educational and academic field, the excellence seminars organized by the award at the Teachers Training Institute in Ajman were the last for their eighteenth session 2024-2025. These disciplines open wide horizons for those working in education to shed light on their creativity in the educational process, each in his/her specialty, and are distributed over seventeen categories that cover different aspects of the educational process in the university and pre-university sectors. Amal Al-Afeefi, Secretary-General of the Award, stressed the various workshops that the award organized in more than one educational and academic institutions were to educate academics in various fields to apply in the current session. The fields presented were: The Distinguished Educational Personality, General Education, Education and Community Service, People of Determination, Creativity in Teaching Arabic language, Higher education, Educational Research, Educational Authorship for children, Innovative Educational Projects and Programs, and the field of the Khalifa International Award for Early Learning, which includes: the best research and studies category, and the best programs, curricula, teaching methodologies and practices category.
Al-Afeefi valued the wide interaction by teachers, parents, community institutions and families attending these seminars and benefiting from the state of interaction and expertise between the judges, winners, and possible candidates in the current session. She also appreciated the efforts of the participants in this program and its excellence workshops. In addition to other seminars arranged remotely, the General Secretariat of the Award arranged several in-person seminars allowing those wishing to nominate from outside the nation to learn about the criteria and requirements necessary for each field or category for which they are nominated. Al-Afeefi clarified that the session, scheduled for today at Ajman’s Teacher Training Center’s headquarters, encompassed multiple fields, such as: the field of General Education, the creative teacher category, in which Dr. Naima Al-Hosani from the United Arab Emirates University spoke, and the winner Maryam Al-Zaabi spoke, and in the Institutional Educational Performance category, Zamzam Al-Najjar and representatives of Fujairah Primary School for Girls spoke, and in the field of People of Determination, Dr. Samia Al-Shamaileh from the University of Sharjah, and the winner Magda Fathallah spoke, and the workshop also included the field of Education and Community Service, in which Dr. Hussein Al-Othman from the University of Sharjah and the General Administration of Penal and Correctional Institutions at Dubai Police spoke, and in the category of the distinguished Emirati family, the Saeed Al-Yilili family spoke. Al-Afeefi explained that the workshop also included the field of Innovation in teaching Arabic Language, by Dr. Majdi bin Souf from Zayed University, and higher education, in which Dr. Essam El-Din Ajami from the University of Sharjah and Dr. Muhammad Abdel-Aal from the University of Sharjah spoke, and in Educational Research, Dr. Hassan Tirat from the United Arab Emirates University spoke, and in educational writing for children, Dr. Afif Bataineh from the American University in Dubai, and in innovative educational projects and programs, Dr. Sadiq Madraj from Zayed University.
At the end of the workshops, a dialogue took place between the speakers and the attendees about the criteria and mechanisms that should be available in the nominated files that are submitted electronically via E-Candidature website, in addition to direct electronic interaction via this website as well as the smart platforms associated with it, which allows candidates from all over the world to raise inquiries and receive responses from the academic and technical support team in the award.