During the Awarding Committee meeting in Abu Dhabi.
“Khalifa Early Learning” reviews its future course.
Amal Al-Afifi: The award represents the excellence of the early childhood care model in the UAE.
Abu Dhabi: Monday 05 June 2023
The Awarding Committee for the Khalifa International Award for Early Learning Field held a meeting yesterday, during which it discussed outcomes of programs and initiatives achieved throughout its current session. The committee members laid out their vision and course of action towards the upcoming 2024 session. Scientific and applied practices adopted by the most prestigious international institutions in the field of early education were addressed while deliberating on stimulating environment for creativity and excellence at this age stage.
The meeting was attended by Amal Al-Afifi, Secretary-General of the Khalifa Award for Education, Hamid Ibrahim, member of the Executive Committee of the Award, Professor Stephen Barnett, Founding Director of the National Institute for Early Education Research at Rutgers University in the United States of America, Chairman of the Awarding Committee, Professor Iram Siraj, Professor of Child Development and Education at Oxford University in the United Kingdom, Professor Nirmala Rao from the University of Hong Kong, Professor Jana Fleming, Director of the Early Childhood Development Department at the Salama Bint Hamdan Al Nahyan Foundation, Fatima Ahmed Al Bastaki, Director of the Schools Group and Director of the Chinese Language Teaching Project at the Ministry of Education in the United Arab Emirates, as well as Dr. Luay Jeroudi, advisor to Khalifa International Award for Early Learning.
Amal Al-Afifi stressed the significance of this meeting, as a number of axes, programs and initiatives that enhance the role of this field in the educational field were reviewed, especially since it was presented for the first time in the world under the directives of His Highness. Sheikh Mansour bin Zayed Al Nahyan, Vice President, Deputy Prime Minister, Minister of the Presidential Court, and Chairman of the Board of Trustees of the Khalifa Educational Award. This field is a one of the many fruits enjoyed from the visionary leadership and their utmost dedicated agenda towards early education; where rules, regulations, and caring processes are all available and enhanced to ensure a healthy rightful upbringing that provide sound social, healthy, educational environment for the growing child. The award truly mirrors the excellence of the early childhood care model in the UAE.
Al-Afifi explained that the meeting appreciated the efforts of the work team in this field, as well as congratulated the winners of the first batch in this field, who will be awarded “Tuesday, June 6”, at the Emirates Palace among the winners of the Khalifa Award for Education, and the meeting congratulated both the Data Drive 2030 Foundation in the Republic of South Africa for the research The winner of “The Five Prosperity Index”, and Dr. Laura Jack Scott-Justice from Ohio State University in the USA for the winning research “Twenty-five years of research and in-depth studies in reading”, and the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB) in the USA for the project “ JADENKÄ Bilingual, Multicultural Kindergarten Mathematics in Panama, and the Zagora Foundation in the Kingdom of Morocco for the winning project “ANEER, an innovative community-based pre-school model program.”