Challenges and Opportunities of Integrating Technology Across the National Charity Schools in the UAE

• In Event: Roundtable Session 4
  In Refereed Roundtable Session: Country cases studies on the challenges and opportunities of education and technology integration

Proposal

Despite the demonstrated potential of educational technology in scaling up standardized instruction, facilitating personalized instruction, broadening opportunities for practice, and increasing student engagement, research on education technology in the UAE and the wider Middle East remains limited, especially among under-resourced schools. This study addresses this gap by assessing the needs, objectives, and capacity of the National Charity School system in the UAE regarding technology integration.

Established in 1983 in response to restrictions on expatriate student enrollment in public schools, the National Charity Schools in the UAE cater to approximately 10,000 students and follow the national curriculum. The recent transition to distance learning during the COVID-19 pandemic has strengthened the digital infrastructure of many schools globally, and the National Charity Schools were no exception. This kindled their interest in further integrating technology into classroom activities.

Drawing from interviews with school administrators and teachers at the National Charity School in Dubai, the study investigates how the recently introduced digital pedagogies affect student engagement and learning outcomes, identifies current and prospective challenges the school faces, explores the perceived utility of technology in fulfilling the school’s goals, and evaluates the skill development needs of teachers and students.

The rapid integration of technology across the National Charity Schools during the COVID-19 pandemic has presented challenges in the provision of devices to students, digital literacy gaps, decentralization of technology usage, and teachers’ concerns about technology’s potential hindrances to learning. Conversely, the opportunities for integrating technology in the school include adapting teacher training to large class sizes and specific subject matters, centralizing the technological platforms employed, fostering collaborations among educators and with educational technology providers to align digital materials with the curriculum, and most importantly, closing the digital divide among students in the school.

Author

• Budoor Alrahmah, Harvard Graduate School of Education