Three Birds with One Stone: Empower, Include,  and Sustain the Emirati Community Program;  Kayani

Gaad, Eman

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Three Birds with One Stone: Empower, Include, and Sustain the Emirati Community Program; Kayani

Date

2017

Authors

Gaad, Eman

Publisher

Common Ground Research Networks

Abstract

I n March 2015, The Emirates Foundation agreed to fund the proposal submitted by the researcher on behalf of the British University in Dubai. The Project was titled: The National Professional Development Programme for Teacher Assistants: Empowering Emirati Women/Men and Supporting Education and Inclusion of all Emirati Learners across the UAE was agreed to run from January 5, 2014 to end of 2015 (Gaad 2015b). The project aimed to support the inclusion process of learners with special educational needs and disabilities (SEND). The project is considered the third phase of a very successful project that started in 2011. The original project started with phase 1 with twenty-five assistant teachers with the support of UAE Down Syndrome Support Association (now known as Emirates Down Syndrome Association, ESDA). Phase 2 then was executed in 2012/13 with fifty-three participants. Despite trying to recruit men and women ensuring that adverts did not restrict to a certain gender as the proposed training programme aimed at Empowering Emirati men/women (age 25–35) to become professional teacher assistants in Emirati government schools in their respected geographical areas. The third phase aimed at expanding the numbers and provide the country with 200 well-trained teacher assistants to enable Emirati learners to reach their full potential in primary government schools across the UAE. A call for research proposals was made, and The British University in Dubai (BUiD) was selected yet again for the third phase by the sponsor to ensure that research elements go hand in hand with the execution of the programme. That was primarily because it is the Middle East’s first research-based, postgraduate university and at the time of executing the programme had just under a thousand postgraduates students, of which approximately 300 were masters and doctoral students in Education. This paper examines to what extent the aims of the programme were achieved through using a set of methods appropriate to the nature of this study and recommends a set of recommendations for future practice.

Keywords

Education, Disability, Community Sustainability

Citation

Gaad, Eman. 2017. "Three Birds with One Stone: Empower, Include, and Sustain the Emirati Community Program; Kayani." The International Journal of Interdisciplinary Educational Studies 12 (1): 1-13.