Hope you are keeping safe. The new academic school year in most of the MENA countries has begun. Schools in some countries opened at full capacity, others offering online education option for students. Kindly see below the latest edition of country updates across the MENA on latest news regarding education in the region. Feel free to contact us if you have any questions or require additional information.

Bahrain: Government schools have delayed opening for two additional weeks, so teachers will start work on 20 September and students two weeks after that.

Egypt: For international schools, online classes have been started this week. Blended learning will be applied for the first semester. As for the national schools, will be reopened as scheduled on 17 October. Dr Tarek Shawky Minister of Education will be holding a conference on 8 September to announce the agreed plan for the new academic year and what are the precautionary measures to be taken.   

Kingdom of Saudi Arabia: Exceptional travel permits to allow Saudi students who are on scholarship scheme to travel from Saudi Arabia to the destination country.

Kuwait:  72,000 teachers and administrative staff have returned back to schools in Kuwait. However, the teaching process will remain online.

Morocco: Remote education will mainly consist of virtual classes and electronic content on the ministry’s platforms, and the teachers' working hours will be dispatched between remote and in-person education. 

Qatar: New academic year begins with blended learning from Tuesday

UAE: Some UAE schools to offer only distance learning after suspected cases.

Visas and Immigration 

UK visa services have now resumed across all visa application centres in the Gulf. Appointments are currently limited, the Priority Visa service is only available in UAE and Qatar, and the Super Priority Visa Services is not yet available in any location. Services and appointment availability are being kept under regular review. Our current service standard for all visit and Tier 4 student visas is 15 working days. UKVI is now (temporarily) issuing T4 students with a 90 day vignette to travel and collect their BRP in the UK, instead of the usual 30 day vignette. If due to travel restrictions your 30 day vignette expired before you were able to use it, UKVI will replace this with a new 90 day vignette free of charge. More information can be found here: https://www.vfsglobal.co.uk/en

UAE students can now start university courses before applying for UK study visa

https://gulfnews.com/uae/education/uae-students-can-now-start-university-courses-before-applying-for-uk-study-visa-1.73587562

Advice for UK visa applicants:

https://www.gov.uk/guidance/coronavirus-covid-19-advice-for-uk-visa-applicants-and-temporary-uk-residents

Advice for Tier 4 students/Short term students

https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/coronavirus-covid-19-tier-4-sponsors-migrants-and-short-term-students

Advice on entering the UK and self-isolation requirements:

https://www.gov.uk/uk-border-control

Travel advice

For travel advice, please visit https://www.gov.uk/foreign-travel-advice. We encourage institutions who are considering travelling to sign up for alerts. We are also keeping up to date with local government websites for any updates and restrictions, so kindly feel free to contact us if you need any information and we will refer you to the relevant websites.

IELTS

In accordance with local health authority and government guidance, we have resumed IELTS testing across the UAE. The health and safety of test takers and test staff is our number one priority and we have taken the time to put in place all precautionary measures to ensure our customers can test confidently at our test venues.

For more information on taken measures, please visit: https://takeielts.britishcouncil.org/covid-19-faqs. 

Upon registering for IELTS with us, test takers will receive:

Access to Road to IELTS - Our free thirty-hour online preparation course with one hundred interactive activities and two practice tests for each of the four skills; reading, listening, writing, and speaking.

Access to IELTS Counselling Service – A free service offering advice from an IELTS expert on how to achieve the desired IELTS score and prepare for the IELTS test. This is aimed at helping test takers achieve their desired scores through personalised virtual sessions and is currently available in the UAE, as well as in Saudi Arabia and Egypt.  For more information visit https://www.britishcouncil.ae/en/exam/ielts/prepare/counselling-service 

Additional support we offer :

• Online practice tests 

•  Free IELTS practice material

•  Mobile apps for IELTS preparation

•  Videos and tips 

Please visit https://takeielts.britishcouncil.org/take-ielts/prepare/courses/road-ielts for further information on preparation resources. To book an IELTS test with the British Council in the UAE, please visit  https://www.britishcouncil.ae/en/exam/ielts/book-test

For information on test availability please visit: https://takeielts.britishcouncil.org/ or https://www.britishcouncil.ae/en/exam/ielts/dates-locations

For more MENA updates, webinars, market insights and other IES services, please go to your alerts settings and select updates from MENA. If you have any feedback or require any additional information, please contact me on dina.kanan@ae.britishcouncil.org

Thank you and stay safe

Dina Kanan

UAE Manager, International Education Services

BAHRAIN:

Government schools have delayed opening for two additional weeks, so teachers will start work on 20 September and students two weeks after that.

https://www.newsofbahrain.com/bahrain/65746.html

Contact

For more information about Bahrain, please contact Kawthar AlArab, Projects Manager, Bahrain  Kawthar.AlArab@britishcouncil.org.bh

EGYPT:

For international schools, online classes have been started this week. Blended learning will be applied for the first semester. As for the national schools, these will be reopened as scheduled on 17 October. Dr Tarek Shawky Minister of Education will be holding a conference on 8 September to announce the agreed plan for the new academic year and what precautionary measures are to be taken.   

Contact

For more information about Egypt, please contact Sahar Khamis, Head of Education Programmes, Egypt Sahar.khamis@britishcouncil.org.eg

KINGDOM OF SAUDI ARABIA

Exceptional travel permits to allow Saudi students who are on scholarship schemes to travel from Saudi Arabia to the destination country.

In order to facilitate the travel of scholarship students and their companions to all countries of scholarship, the General Directorate of Passports, in cooperation with the Ministry of Education in Saudi Arabia, launched an exceptional permit service through its services on the "Absher" platform for electronic services.

LINK

The Minister of Health: Extending distance education if no Corona vaccine is available.

The Saudi Minister of Health, Dr. Tawfiq Al-Rabiah, confirmed that the decision to return to study after the seven week period depends on an assessment of the health situation, and in the absence of a vaccine for the emerging corona virus, distance education will be extended. He added: Distance education is a solution that the Ministry of Education is grateful for, and its preparations were wonderful in this field, but face-to-face education is more effective, so we are keen to assess the situation, and we will not rush. After about five to seven weeks we will evaluate the situation, and it will be agreed upon to either extend remote study or being in attendance, and this will be according to the conditions, availability of the vaccine and accessibility to it.

LINK

The Saudi Ministry of Education modifies the working hours of administrators and reduces class time.

The Deputy Minister of Education, Dr. Abdul-Rahman Al-Asimi, issued a new decision that includes modifying the starting dates of the administrative body in schools, in addition to amending the duration of academic classes at all academic levels in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. In details, the new decision includes adjusting the start of work for the intermediate and secondary stages, as it will be from nine in the morning for the middle school, and the primary school from three in the afternoon. The decision issued by the Deputy Minister of Education stated that, accordingly, the administrative body (school leaders, deputies, student counsellors, and administrators) for the intermediate and secondary levels shall be from eight-thirty in the morning, while attendance at the elementary stage is at exactly two-thirty in the afternoon.

LINK

Contact Information

For more information and insights about the situation in KSA, please contact Rizwan Safdar, Project Manager, KSA (Rizwan.Safdar@sa.britishcouncil.org)

KUWAIT:

After a seven month closure, 72,000 teachers and administration staff have returned back to schools in Kuwait. However, the teaching process will remain online. The teachers will get more training on online teaching before the start of the academic year and it will be online for students this week.

Schools are expected to reopen in November, with students gradually returning to their classrooms for the new academic year 2020-2021. The Ministry of Health announced that the decision is similar to the one taken by some Gulf countries to reopen its schools, and the issue would be discussed in a timely manner according to further details, the most important of which was registering a low number of infections and the availability of the vaccine.

The Ministry of Education developed a plan to organise paper tests for twelfth-grade students in the supplementary year 2019-2020, “but it is waiting for the green light from the Ministry of Health to implement the testing.

https://www.timeskuwait.com/news/schools-slated-to-open-in-november/

Contact Information

For more information and insights about the situation in Kuwait, please contact Rasha Osman, Project Manager, Higher Education ((Rasha.Osman@britishcouncil.org)

MOROCCO:

The Ministry of National Education announced the start of the school year on 7 September and will be through distance education and face-to-face, subject to the parents’ approval. Eighty per cent of Moroccan families have chosen in-person education over remote lessons for their children. Classes will be reduced up to fifty per cent in schools for face-to-face courses. The Minister of Education has announced strict protocols for parents and school staff - parents are required to check their children’s temperatures before sending them to school. School staff are required to ensure that preventive measures are strictly applied within schools, including the wearing of facemasks, regular use of hand sanitizers, regular handwashing, prohibition of gatherings of large groups, and respecting social distancing measures (four metres).  

Remote education will mainly consist of virtual classes and electronic content on the ministry’s platforms, and the teachers' working hours will be dispatched between remote and in-person education. 

Contact Information

For more information, kindly contact Kenza ElMohajir, Project Manager, English and Education (Kenza.ElMohajir@britishcouncil.org.ma )

QATAR:

Hundreds of thousands of students are set to resume studies as the new academic year begins in Qatar from Tuesday.

The Ministry of Education and Higher Education will implement a blended learning system during the first term of the 2020/2021 school year across all educational stages and including government and private schools, higher education institutes and kindergartens.

More than 340,000 students are expected to attend public and private schools in this academic year.

https://www.gulf-times.com/story/671899/New-academic-year-begins-with-blended-learning-fro

Contact Information

For more information, you may contact Paula Jensch, Project Coordinator Qatar, (Paula.Jensch@qa.britishcouncil.org)

UAE:

Dubai schools say that parents are free to switch learning modes for their children.

https://www.khaleejtimes.com/coronavirus-pandemic/parents-free-to-switch-learning-modes-for-kids-say-dubai-schools

Most universities in UAE have opted for online classes this semester

https://www.khaleejtimes.com/coronavirus-pandemic/most-universities-in-uae-opt-for-online-classes-this-semester-

COVID19: Some UAE schools to offer only distance learning after suspected cases

https://gulfnews.com/uae/education/covid-19-some-uae-schools-to-offer-only-distance-learning-after-suspected-cases-1.1598983663200

First Chinese public school outside China opens in Dubai

https://gulfnews.com/uae/first-chinese-public-school-outside-china-opens-in-dubai-1.73559591

Contact Information

For more information, please contact Dina Kanan, UAE Manger, International Education Services (dina.kanan@ae.britishcouncil.org)