How is the UAE’s education system evolving from personalised, inclusive learning to a specialised one? Dr Arindam Banerjee (Associate Professor and Deputy Director – Global MBA & Master of Global Business, SP Jain) and Prof Christopher Abraham (Head of Campus – Dubai, SP Jain) shared their insights in an interview with Khaleej Times, a leading English language newspaper in the UAE.
'Mutawa system' to modern education: A brief history
Dr Arindam Banerjee highlighted the four distinct stages in the country’s education sector. "The earliest system was referred to as the Mutawa and Katateeb. Mutawa literally meant the wisest person in the village who took the onus of helping others in reading and scripting the Holy Quran and abiding by Islamic principles. On the other hand, Katateeb was similar in nature but differed in having a physical location for imparting knowledge to the upper strata of the society, which was similar to the present-day primary schooling.”
“Next up were 'educational circles' structured around traditional student-teacher model involving knowledge transfer through lecture methods. The third phase or 'semi-organised education' spanned around 50 years starting 1900. The final phase marked the initiation of the 'modern education system'.”
Varsities of the future
Prof Christopher Abraham outlined his vision for the future of educational institutions and shared:
- The future university would embody the critical skills required for the 21st century professional
- It would move away from the industrial revolution legacy and become more open to encourage creativity, innovation, problem-solving, critical thinking and collaboration
- It would enable the influence of cutting-edge, evolving technologies including Artificial Intelligence, Big Data, Machine Learning, Deep Learning, Internet of Everything and Human-computer Interface
- The evolution of these technologies would result in the development of super intelligent human beings
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