On 12 December 2020, the Embassy of the United Arab Emirates in Tbilisi in coordination with the Ministry of Education of the United Arab Emirates and the Department of Arabic Studies at Ivane Javakhishvili Tbilisi State University, had an honour to organize an online lecture entitled “Efforts and Achievements of the United Arab Emirates in the field of Education” coinciding with the UN International Arabic Language day, observed on December 18, with participation of a number of Academic specialists from the United Arab Emirates and Georgia and University students of Bachelor and Master degrees.

During the discussions, the lecturers stressed on the importance of providing future generations with technical and scientific skills in order to advance the world economy through both the pubic and private sectors and highlighted the success of the two countries’ efforts in adapting quickly to new conditions and ensuring continuous studies during the Covid-19 pandemic witnessed by the world this year, which affected on various fields, including education and praised smooth transition from traditional to distance learning methods, which enabled completing the academic year without disturbing the curricula of the educational process.

Emirati participants of the lecture touched on the following issues during their speeches:

They highlighted that the UAE presents an ambitious model in the field of higher education, which is witnessing rapid development not only at the local, but on regional and global levels as well. Educational institutions in the UAE are among top rated universities according to international rankings. The UAE has also become a centre of attraction for many international universities and students from different parts of the world.

Moreover, using Smart Education method in the UAE was mentioned during the lecture, as the Universities in the UAE are not only limited to traditional education, but they introduce smart education institutions, such as Hamdan Bin Mohammed Smart University in the Emirate of Dubai, which took upon itself to spread the culture of quality and scientific research through smart education, which indicates the primacy of the UAE in foreseeing the future, and working to provide an adequate infrastructure to implement this type of education.

Mohammed Bin Zayed University for Artificial Intelligence (which is an educational institution for postgraduate studies) focuses on scientific research and aims to provide specialized programs in the field of artificial intelligence in order to support the process of scientific research and development and creation of knowledge and the use of artificial intelligence by providing all academic degrees, masters and doctoral degrees, which will contribute to supporting students to reach the required intellectual level in a modern and distinguished environment.

The UAE managed, within a short period of time, to establish an excellent and diversified system of higher education. United Arab Emirates University, founded in 1976, led higher education in the UAE. Since then, the UAE has witnessed an increase in establishing public and private higher educational institutes and a continuous improvement in qualitative performance of existing institutes (public universities, Zayed University, Higher Colleges of Technology, private universities, American University in the Emirates of Sharjah and Dubai, Abu Dhabi University and Khalifa University of Science and Technology).

The UAE has also launched an education program of the Emirates Space Agency, which aims to establish an integrated educational and scientific structure, by preparing, developing and qualifying national cadres to encourage them to work in the space sector.

The Emirates Space Agency, in collaboration with the United States Space Agency (NASA), provides opportunity for a limited number of highly qualified Emirati students eligible to join the training program, alongside international students.

Moreover, western institutions of higher education are developing a presence in the UAE and currently, the UAE is home to the following international universities: French International Universities, New York University Abu Dhabi, British Heriot-Watt University in Dubai, Australian University of Wollongong in Dubai, Birla Institute of Technology and Science and other high-quality universities.

In closing remarks, Ms. Darejan Gardavadze, Professor of Arabic Language and Literature at Tbilisi State University praised the Embassy’s initiative to organize the lecture on the field of education in the UAE, while expressed her hope towards further enhancing of the mutual cooperation between the two countries in educational and cultural fields.

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