Virtual Teaching Standards’ Booklet

On March 5th, the Minister of Education, in the UAE announced that
all school systems were to work online as part of the ‘Learning from
Afar’ initiative, due to the ongoing health crisis. Abu Dhabi Centre for
Vocational Education and Training (ACTVET) as the regulator, on March
6th 2020, at one days’ notice, had all 17 public schools with a registered
7,921 students, two Polytechnics, five Further Education Colleges and
four Health Science Colleges with a registered 5,782 students (PSSN,
2020) online. Within 12 hours, 90% of students were being taught
virtually, online, a great success.

The Director General of ACTVET reflected on
the ‘Learning from Afar’ initiative and prepared
a report entitled, ‘The United Arab Emirates
continues education, at home, during the
COVID-19 health crisis’, published by ACTVET.
On reflection, the Director General arrived at ten
points important for activation of virtual teaching
at short notice and they were:

A Business Continuity Plan is of top importance
for the assessment of risk and the application of
mitigation for crisis situations.
An Operation Room could be set up and
operational within 12 hours. Should further crisis
emerge then the ACTVET school system will
be able to fully function provided the internet
connectivity is available.
The technology in schools was sufficient to
support the ‘Learning from Afar’ initiative.
Regulatory staff had the kills and experience
required to step into temporary positions as the
need arose.
Teaching and support staff were flexible enough
to be able to function in a remote location with
little disturbance.
Teachers were able to use the online learning, live
streaming system and technology without any
challenges. This applied to both digital natives
and digital immigrants.
The previous use of online, distance and flipped
classroom learning was necessary for staff to
perform at short notice.
The quality of teaching could be quality assured
from the Operation Room, by fewer Inspectors,
with consistency of judgement, at less cost.
Therefore, the ‘Learning from Afar’ initiative
created unexpected monitory saving.
Students needed to continue to have social
contact with others when they were learning at
home and chat time needed to be built into the
timetable to avoid isolation.
Standard or guidelines for online virtual teaching
was not available for teachers to follow. Teachers
unaware of what best practice or excellence
looked like. The last point indicated that a virtual
teaching standard for teaching staff to follow
was not available and needed to be addressed.