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MOEPublic>>HomePage>>Corona

The Covid-19 Challenge
Distance Learning for Public Schools
Ministry Support for Private Schools
Ensuring a Robust Evaluation System
Meeting The Higher Education Challenges
Distance Learning Achievements
Toward the Future
A Message from the Minister
Blended Learning Adopted for 2020/21 Academic Year

The Covid-19 Challenge

Following the closure of all public and private schools and universities on March 10, 2020 to control the COVID-19 outbreak, the Ministry of Education and Higher Education (MOEHE) acted swiftly in designing an effective alternative to the physical classroom, ensuring that all students are able to continue their learning and not fall behind in their studies.

The Ministry of Education and Higher Education launched a new online learning platform called “Mzeed”. This platform offers digital and interactive resources prepared by a qualified team of teachers, early education mentors and curricula specialists. Students can find many resources on this platform including interactive books, textbooks in PDF format, video, audio and many other digital learning materials that enrich the student’s education. Through this platform, the Ministry aims to boost the learning process of the students by providing explanation in an interesting and interactive way, without the constant need to connect to the internet.

The Ministry also launched the platform of “Qlearning” facilitating and supporting all distance learning services. To visit this portal click here.

For students who did not have the equipment or access to e-learning, the Ministry, through its collaborations with the telecommunications networks in Qatar, has provided computers, tablets, laptops and hundreds of broadband devices for Internet access to students who needed them for home-based learning.

Distace Learning for Public Schools

A detailed plan for all levels of distance learning was developed by the Education Affairs Department of the MOEHE.

One of the first major initiatives introduced by the Ministry to support students’ distance learning was the establishment of a new educational channel on YouTube, entitled “Qatar’s Distance Learning”, serving grades K-12. This channel is divided into 19 YouTube sub channels, providing educational materials for all subjects and grades, as well as material for adult learners and students with special needs or disabilities. To further support communication between teachers, students and parents, the Ministry has instructed schools to utilize the platform of Microsoft Teams (MS Teams) that allows these parties to have immediate and direct contact with each other.

In addition, two free-to-air educational T.V. channels were set up in affiliation with Qatar T.V.; “Education 1” and “Education 2”. This was made possible under Qatar Media Corporation’s (QMC) social responsibility initiative, to help ease students transitions from learning in a physical classroom to online learning.

Ministry Support for Private Schools

The Ministry has directed the 320 private K-12 schools serving more than 200,000 students to design and develop plans for distance learning. The Ministry has also provided training and follow-up to some schools that do not have systems for distance learning. In addition, the Ministry's Special Education Affairs Department provided computers and tablets to students whose parents were affected financially by the pandemic. This was made possible through the Ministry’s coordination of donations from several companies, businessmen and charities.

Ensuring a Robust Evaluation System

During this exceptional period, the Ministry is maintaining its continuous institutionalized system of school evaluation from grades 4 to 11. That includes final exams for grade 12 students in public schools as well as students enrolled in adult and evening classes.

Final examinations for the academic year 2019-20 will be conducted under special arrangements to ensure the safety of all students, teachers and other staff members. Preparations by the Ministry have been made to maintain a distance of over three meters between all people. Accordingly, exams will be held in either classrooms that will allow only 8 students inside at one time or big halls such as indoor sports venues where only 40 students will be seated at one time.

Medical personnel will be present to ensure each student undergoes a physical examination upon entering the classroom. Health observers and supervisors will be onsite to ensure social distancing. All staff will be wearing masks and gloves as a precautionary step for the duration of the tests. The Ministry has also provided isolation rooms at the examination sites should any student that arrives show any symptoms.

Meeting The Higher Education Challenges

Since the announcement of a nationwide closure of all schools and universities amid the COVID-19 pandemic, universities have also moved to resume studies through distance learning. The Ministry has since been using technology to strengthen the basic distance education systems. Further, the Ministry is ensuring that the evaluation and assessment systems and examinations are also benefiting from current policies and practices in distance learning.

Qatari Scholarship Students

MOEHE has also been following up daily with the overseas learning experiences of all Qatari scholarship students as well as those students who are studying abroad at their own expense. The Ministry is checking on the conditions of those students, helping those who want to return home and coordinating with their relevant universities to ensure students can complete their studies remotely until the current situation abates. The Ministry is also noting that within this temporary period, the 12% assessment on subjects will not be counted for total marks within the proportion calculated on distance study.

Applications and Pre-approvals

Through its Higher Education Affairs Department and prompted by the exceptional circumstances of the COVID-19 pandemic worldwide, MOEHE has suspended until further notice the acceptance of applications and grant pre-approvals for full time students seeking university degrees to study abroad. If the current circumstances continue into the beginning of the 2020-21 academic year, then the pre-approvals already obtained by students will be automatically extended without the need to resubmit new applications unless students wish to amend any items that were pre-approved. The Ministry has allowed full-time students who obtained prior approval to study abroad to continue studying through distance learning until the universities return to normal.

Distance Learning Achievements

The Ministry’s staff has worked diligently in collaboration with other educational providers to create a smooth transition from the classroom to online learning. In fact, these distance learning platforms have shown a great capacity for interaction between students and teachers. In a very short period of time, the results have been enormous. By April 30, 2020 they include:

350 teachers from the most qualified teaching staff
28 distinguished electronic project coordinators
8 e-learning specialists who oversee the operation and development of online e-learning programs
128,000+ users including 115,000 students and 13,000 teachers
Students and teachers exchanged around 1 million text messages and more than 10,000 phone calls

Special Education:

72 special education coordinators to develop relationships with classroom teachers
392 special education teachers who are responsible for providing and coordinating individualized instruction together with:
126 specialist mentors

YouTube:

8,410,862 viewers
83,795 subscribers on the YouTube channels
23,533 video lessons produced for students
19,908 video lessons produced in special education and integration schools
2,456 video lessons for students of all grades, including 2,121 for grades 3-12; 273 for kindergarten; 48 for primary schools; 14 for adult education

MS Teams:

2,121 daily assignments posted on the Microsoft Team app for all grades and adult education

Read the latest report the Ministry issued about distance learning achievements

EDU Remote Learning latest report English.pdf.

Toward the Future

Qatar is not alone. The whole world is experiencing this pandemic and subsequent disruption to the educational process. The Ministry of Education and Higher Education is keeping apprised of all the developments related to the spread of the COVID-19 pandemic in Qatar and abroad and will make future decisions as the situation develops.

In the meantime, it is important to note that the Ministry itself has adopted several temporary measures in line with the Cabinet’s decision to reduce the number of employees in the workplace of government agencies to 20% of the total workforce, with 80% of the staff working from home. Despite this disruption, the Ministry’s dedicated employees successfully facilitated the transition of the educational system to online learning and is continuing to support students and teachers to achieve further success.

Moreover, these employees are providing the most essential e-services to the public, while at the same time, providing vocational safety and health requirements to protect staff from infection. The Ministry continues to coordinate with relevant authorities, including the Ministry of Public Health, the Ministry of Interior and the Ministry of Transport and Communications.

A Message from the Minister

During these exceptional times with the spread of COVID-19, His Excellency Dr. Mohammed bin Abdul Wahed Al-Hammadi, the Minister of Education and Higher Education, speaks to the entire education community about the efforts the Ministry is making to ensure that students can complete their academic year through distance learning, in spite of the school closures.

To read the Minister’s message, click here.

The Ministry of Education and Higher Education, in close coordination with the Ministry of Public Health, decided to implement the blended learning approach for the first semester of the 2020/21 academic year. A combination of online learning and classroom-based lessons will be offered to all stages of education across the public and private schools, preschools and higher education institutions.

The blended learning approach aims to mitigate the academic consequences of the school closures and delay of the new academic year.

For more information, please read the latest news on the blended learning, or our frequently asked questions.

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