Foundation earmarks Dh3.4m for schools

ABU DHABI // Some of the nation's public schools will receive extra funding from the Emirates Foundation, which is to distribute improvement grants totalling more than Dh3.4 million (US$926,000). The programme is the first joint venture between the foundation and the Ministry of Education since they announced a partnership for improving public schools in June.

Schools will be eligible for grants of up to Dh100,000 (US$27,248), supported by the foundation and private sector partners such as the construction company Darwish Bin Ahmed and Sons. The grants available from the foundation are 20 Dh100,000 awards for improving school libraries; 16 Dh50,000 grants for developing school curricula; and 20 Dh30,000 grants to promote parental participation in schools. The affiliated Takatof Programme will offer grants up to Dh10,000 for secondary schools to promote volunteerism.

"All parties will be involved in the whole process and there will be full transparency," said the Minister of Education, Dr Hanif Hassan. The Emirates Foundation set up the Takatof programme in April 2007, but this is the first time it is offering grants. The other programmes are new to the foundation this year. The decision to focus on enhancing school curricula followed an announcement that the Ministry of Education plans to replace the national curriculum with a standards-based curriculum developed by the Abu Dhabi Education Council.

Despite the Ministry of Education's Dh7 billion (US$1.9bn) annual budget, some public school libraries have only a few books and are not equipped with up-to-date resources such as computers or interactive whiteboards. "One of my schools has a nice library but the other school has no books in the library at all and the school is four years old," said Tina Hathorn, a principal adviser at Salama bint Butti and Um al Emarat school in Al Shamka. "It's a shame to have the room, to have that nice facility but not to have any resources in it."

Ms Hathorn said budgetary limitations made it difficult for public schools to develop improvement programmes on their own. "Their budgets are so small. So whenever the money comes in it's used on facility-type things. There is not a lot of money left over to build up the library. There are some things that are given but it would be nice to have money that could be earmarked specifically for the library and other programmes."

Salama bint Butti and Um al Emarat are trying to develop volunteer programmes. Administrators at both schools are also trying to encourage parents to get more involved. "Oftentimes we have activities and parent meetings and we ask for parents to come and maybe a handful, maybe 30 parents will show up out of the seven or eight hundred students that we have. It would be nice to have more parents involved in their children's education," Ms Hathorn said.

The Emirates Foundation, founded in 2005, will accept grant applications until November. Applicants will be selected by a panel of representatives from the Ministry of Education, the Emirates Foundation, the Abu Dhabi Education Council, the Knowledge and Human Development Authority and private-sector partners. @Email:klewis@thenational.ae