 |
A recently released tool is helping educators in the Middle East and North Africa region following three years of fee freezes and stagnant education investment as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic.
The Curriculum Led Financial Planning Tool was developed by UK-based training company Skills Network to help international schools in the region, which have been particularly severely hit by the fee freeze, with their financial planning.
The 2019–2020 academic year saw various Arab Gulf nations' most recent permissible fee hike.
The pressure on schools in the commercial capital of the UAE increased when Dubai's Knowledge and Human Development Authority declared in March that foreign schools would not be permitted to increase tuition costs for 2022.
To lessen the financial impact of COVID-19, hundreds of private schools in Saudi Arabia reduced their prices by 50% during the first semester of the previous academic year.
According to Natasha Ridge, executive director of the Sheikh Saud bin Saqr Al-Qasimi Foundation for Policy Research in the UAE emirate of Ras Al-Khaimah, regional schools, particularly those with smaller accounting teams, will considerably benefit from the new tools at their disposal.
She told Arab News that it might assist students consider ways to cut expenditures or streamline expenses, opportunities for fundraising, and, in general, how to handle the school's resources more sustainably.
The CLFP tool will aid MENA schools in navigating a challenging economic climate.
The cloud-based worldwide school resource eliminates the need for conventional electronic spreadsheets for financial planning by giving users 24/7 access from anywhere in the world
The tool, which was created in collaboration with top UK school organizations, gives teachers access to a variety of materials, templates, and methodologies that are intended to "support financial planning and manage staffing through efficient and strategic systems," giving schools "expert support through difficult financial times."
According to Christopher Brown, school and sixth forms manager at the Skills Network, "there is a big demand for financial planning tools in the MENA region, with the quality of education influenced by solid finances, therefore the CLFP is a perfect fit."
"The KHDA's implementation of foreign school fee freezes back in March 2022 has brought budgetary resources to the forefront for Middle Eastern education officials, and our CLFP tool has the ability to significantly improve the financial situation for educators in this region."
The application provides educational institutions with a variety of advantages, including benchmarking financial performance, thorough workforce planning that enables institutions to efficiently deploy employees, and curriculum and subject modeling
In order to establish a three- to five-year plan based on data, schools will also be able to develop an integrated curriculum planning approach based on measurements of the current curriculum, staffing structure, and finances.
This action strives to give teachers the tools they need to create the best curriculum for their students using the resources they have.
Schools all throughout the world experienced financial instability as a result of the pandemic. More than 40 of the UAE's foreign schools opened in the Gulf between January 2020 and January 2022, while at least another 40 closed. Equally, Brown said to Arab News, "enrollment cycles have grown less predictable post-pandemic, therefore this has made financial planning for schools harder."
"Despite several MENA countries seeing an upbeat recovery, there is still much to be done to guarantee financial stability and economic progress.
"There are currently fresh pressures to include required
Arabic teaching hours, well-being and sustainability, as well as continuous
investment in technology and virtual reality. Planning for financial resources
and the future of the workforce will remain a primary focus for MENA schools.
The Skills Network, which was founded in Yorkshire in 2009 and has since expanded to become a prominent supplier of technology-based learning solutions, is one of the UK's top online learning providers.
With over 1.6 million students regularly utilizing its learning portal, EQUAL, it claims to deliver high-quality learning experiences across a wide range of topic areas for the corporate, public, and educational sectors.
The Skills Network claims that its staff development initiatives, apprenticeship programs, and online distance learning courses have assisted organizations including G4S, Thomson Reuters, and the Trades Union Congress in achieving their training and development objectives.
These instruments are essential in the modern world. In more than 190 nations and affecting about 1.6 billion children, the epidemic caused unprecedented disruption to global education systems, according to a UN policy brief published in August 2020.
The health crisis forced the closure of educational facilities for about 100 million pupils between the ages of 5 and 17 in the MENA region alone.
As a result, governments in the region, including those of the UAE, Kuwait, and Saudi Arabia, have emphasized a hybrid model of online and in-person learning more and more. For instance, the Kingdom recently opened up its national education portal Ain to more than 6 million users and provided 30,000 devices for students who needed them at the time.
According to the Skills Network, a team of professionals is designing a more effective educational system specifically for the Middle East.
The team has already signed up more than 100 schools abroad in recent months, despite the fact that it is only in the early phases of introducing its product to MENA institutions.
According to Brown, "We have found a demand from schools trying to determine precise subject and lesson costs across their curriculum.
"We have collaborated with our current partners to develop the tool and offer more analytical information to enable focused change, driven by the quality of teaching with students — producing improved learner outcomes," the statement reads.
The UAE, Oman, Bahrain, Qatar, and Saudi Arabia are just a few nations that allow the usage of the financial planning tool. It has generated annual savings of £163,000 ($193,228) on average for secondary schools in the UK.
So it's a tested and reliable asset to any foreign school worldwide, according to Brown. In the end, kids will gain from a teacher workforce and budget that are optimized to support the delivery of high-quality education.
The scenario for schools is only growing worse, according to Ridge of the Ras Al-Khaimah research institute, as many MENA nations endure severe inflation as a result of skyrocketing food and gasoline prices.
This would be challenging for schools, she said, particularly in the private sector where parents will also have less money to spend.
"I think the situation needs government assistance to help schools cope during this challenging time. If left to market forces, it might develop worse, but government action could be beneficial.
Although all nations stand to gain from the new tools, in her opinion, lower-income nations will stand to gain more, and the aid could not come at a better moment.
Since there is such a strong reliance on for-profit, private education, Ridge warned that rising prices and market pressures could force school closures, especially at the lower end of the market, which would harm the poorest kids.
International schools in the MENA region are reporting a huge demand for enrolment from local children and families, according to Brown of The Skills Network. He claims that the learner profile for international schools has changed over time and is now more regionalized than ever.
"With the continual shift in learner profile come new problems and strains on curriculum delivery and budgetary resources," Brown remarked, looking to the future.
"It is crucial that schools in the MENA region are
furnished with the technology necessary to satisfy these changing
requirements."
Comments
Post a Comment