Mohamed bin Zayed spends time in class with pupils on first day of school

During his tour of the school, His Highness Sheikh Mohamed bin Zayed Al Nahyan, Crown Prince of Abu Dhabi and Deputy Supreme Commander of the UAE Armed Forces, was accompanied by H.H. Sheikh Hazza bin Zayed Al Nahyan, Deputy Chairman of Abu Dhabi Executive Council and H.H. Sheikh Mansour bin Zayed Al Nahyan, Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Presidential Affairs.

Upon arrival, Sheikh Mohamed was received by Hussain bin Ibrahim Al Hammadi, Minister of Education, Jameela Al Muheiri, Minister of State for Public Education, Dr. Ali Rashid Al Nuaimi Chairman of Education and Knowledge Department, Abdulrahman Mohammed Al Hammadi, Under-Secretary of the Ministry of Education for Control and Support Services, Dr. Yousef Al Shaiba Khamis Al Sheryani Under-Secretary of the Department of Education and Knowledge along with a number of officials.

At the beginning of the tour, Ayesha Hassan Al Yamahi, Director of Alef Education System at the Ministry of Education, conducted a briefing on the online education platform that engages pupils through the use of technology.

Sheikh Mohamed then toured a number of classes and sat in on math and English-language lessons with pupils at the government-run girls' school.

"Continue your educational journey with all seriousness and hard work, as our goal is no longer to pass only - but to excel and make it to the top," Sheikh Mohamed told the girls, who expressed their happiness with His Highness' visit.

He exchanged cordial talk with the teaching and administrative staffs on their vision of the new school year, urging them to stick to positivity and fruitful, hard work and apply best international practices to get the country's education system on par with that in the world's most advanced countries.

He called on parents to double efforts and contributions to grooming generations capable of delivering the future and shouldering responsibility toward their homeland.

"Education is the best tool whereby we can chart fresh roadmaps for the betterment of our nation. Education has become the real bet for effecting a qualitative leap across all fields of development and therefore we should not spare any efforts to raise the awareness of our kids about the central importance of education," he added.

"The transformation developmental drive the UAE is going through is based on education, as the main driver for sustainable development," Sheikh Mohamed noted.

He wished the students a successful and fruitful year full of hard word and effective contributions to the Vision 2021 with education as its foundation.

Sheikh Mohamed was accompanied during the tour as well by Mohamed Mubarak Al Mazrouei, Under- Secretary of Abu Dhabi Crown Prince Court, and Mohamed Ghanim Al Suwaidi, Director General of Abu Dhabi Crown Prince Court.

Alef, a privately-held UAE-based education technology company, and the Ministry of Education, have signed an agreement to implement Alef’s education system in 10 Abu Dhabi public schools.

The programme will be implemented across grade six to eight and will cover mathematics, science, English and Arabic at Al Suqoor School, Al Asayel School, Fatima bint Mubarak School, Sa'ad bin Mo'ath School, Atika bint Abdel Muttalib School, Makkah School, Al Dhaher School, Al Khair School, Qatr Al Nada School and Al Nokhba School.

Through the Alef programme, children will learn by watching videos and reading digital content, while answering questions. Each lesson starts with a video and the system employs artificial intelligence to graduate pupils to the next lesson - depending on the number of questions they answer correctly.

Should a pupil appear to struggle with a concept, the system reroutes and presents the lesson again in a manner tailored to the pupil’s needs. Some children may appear to learn more from videos so the system presents information visually instead.

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