All govt schools to be Independent soon

The Peninsula - All government schools in Qatar, functioning under the Ministry of Education will be transformed to Independent Schools supervised by the Supreme Education Council (SEC) within the next four or five years, a senior SEC official said yesterday.

Almost 25 per cent of the government schools have already been converted into Independent Schools since SEC's education reform initiative started in Qatar three years ago, Sabah Al Haidous, Director of the Education Institute at SEC told The Peninsula yesterday.

" The plan was to transform all the existing government schools to Independent Schools within a period of seven to eight years. The reform process has already completed three years and SEC has set up 33 Independent Schools so far. By the next academic year, their number will go up to 54 schools, with the addition of 21 new schools," she said.

She indicated that the Ministry of Education, in its current form, would cease to exist when this transformation is complete.

"This is presumable though any decision in this regard has to be taken by the higher authorities," she noted.

She added that the staff working with the government schools would be shifted to the Independent Schools or other related departments during the process.

The SEC, set up through an Emiri decree, is the official body spearheading the education reform process in the country, Sabah Al Haidous said.