Curriculum Development in the United Arab Emirates

Author(s):  
Natasha Ridge ◽  
Susan Kippels ◽  
Samar Farah

With an increasing emphasis on youth development and employability in the Middle East, the United Arab Emirates (UAE) has made a substantial effort to re- imagine and reform its public education sector. Local education authorities have implemented many reforms to try to shift education from rote memorization toward a skills-based system that prepares students to thrive in the 21st century. This policy paper explores the history of curriculum development in the UAE, the role of various agencies, ministries, and current initiatives as well as the challenges and possibilities that lie ahead on the road of reform. It concludes with recommendations for policymakers relating to the implementation of sustainable curriculum reforms.

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Henk-Jan Dekker

In an effort to fight climate change, many cities try to boost their cycling levels. They often look towards the Dutch for guidance. However, historians have only begun to uncover how and why the Netherlands became the premier cycling country of the world. Why were Dutch cyclists so successful in their fight for a place on the road? Cycling Pathways: The Politics and Governance of Dutch Cycling Infrastructure, 1920-2020 explores the long political struggle that culminated in today’s high cycling levels. Delving into the archives, it uncovers the important role of social movements and shows in detail how these interacted with national, provincial, and urban engineers and policymakers to govern the distribution of road space and construction of cycling infrastructure. It discusses a wide range of topics, ranging from activists to engineering committees, from urban commuters to recreational cyclists and from the early 1900s to today in order to uncover the long and all-but-forgotten history of Dutch cycling governance.


At the beginning of the year, we announced that the third issue of the Contemporary Military Challenges would be dedicated to the tenth anniversary of the accession of the Republic of Slovenia to NATO. However, we did not expect such a good response. We received articles from authors who are very familiar with the history of Slovenia's efforts to join the Alliance; most of them were also personally involved in the process. Since they are still present and active in their professional fields, their views of the past events have a special personal character, while their views of the future are enriched by the theoretical knowledge and personal experience. Unfortunately, we cannot publish all the articles we have received. The guiding principle in the selection was the focus on the defence and military contents, since we mainly wanted to pay attention to the contents to which this publication is dedicated and which are defined in its acts as its basic mission. In 2009, we marked the fifth anniversary of Slovenia’s membership in the Alliance and the sixtieth anniversary of the Alliance with a special thematic issue.The themes covered were very interesting for the countries of the South Eastern Europe which were treading the path that Slovenia had already travelled. We expect this issue to be of interest to people who like the defence and military themes, to younger generations and to all those who might still be on the road of approximating to or entering the Alliance. By reading the contents below, you can discover how successful we were in ensuring this interest. The article titled NATO after 2014 – Back to the Roots or Forward towards the Future? by Uros Lampret and Staša Novak presents the Alliance today, the current security trends that are emerging in the world, and the responses to them. The authors claim that back to the roots or forward towards the future does not mean two different directions, but something completely different. In theoretical and practical terms, Milan Jazbec gives an overview of the Slovenian experiences at the time which constitutes the central theme of this issue. He uses the term “learning from experience”, and the title of his article Slovenia and NATO: the Long and Winding Road is not merely symbolic. Andrej Osterman prepared an overview of the operation of the Slovenian Armed Forces and its experiences within the Alliance. In the article titled Republic of Slovenia in NATO – Slovenian Armed Forces Ten Years Later, he presented the key changes and progress of the Slovenian military. Damir Črnčec and Janez Urbanc focused on the intelligence and security area. In the article titled Streamlining the Intelligence and Security Structures in NATO and the European Union, the authors describe in detail the changes in the organization and the functioning of the intelligence and security community in the international environment, and also the role of Slovenia in it. In his article titled Slovenia's Contribution to Afghanistan Peace and Reintegration Programme (APRP) – Policy Advisor’s Perspective, Aljosa Selan presents the activities in Afghanistan after the gradual withdrawal of the Allied Forces, aimed at the best possible preparation of the country’s residents for an independent and quality everyday life. The Normative Role of the Alliance in Non-Conventional Security Threats – Cyber Defence of the Member States is the title of the article written by Adriana Dvoršak. The author raises topical issues which are changing so rapidly that the security structures are already aware of possible threats. There is much that still needs to be done in order to achieve effective protection. We would like to thank all the authors for their work and efforts, especially for their willingness to share with us their knowledge, experiences and views. We invite all those who might be thinking about preparing an article, but have not yet decided to do so, to send us their contributions.


2009 ◽  
Vol 43 (9) ◽  
pp. 18-19
Author(s):  
MICHAEL S. JELLINEK
Keyword(s):  
The Road ◽  

Author(s):  
Kai Bruns

This chapter focuses on the negotiations that preceded the 1961 Vienna Conference (which led to the conclusion of the VCDR). The author challenges the view that the successful codification was an obvious step and refers in this regard to a history of intense negotiation which spanned fifteen years. With particular reference to the International Law Commission (ILC), the chapter explores the difficult task faced by ILC members to strike a balance between the codification of existing practice and progressive development of diplomatic law. It reaches the finding that the ILC negotiations were crucial for the success of the Conference, but notes also that certain States supported a less-binding form of codification. The chapter also underlines the fact that many issues that had caused friction between the Cold War parties were settled during the preparatory meetings and remained largely untouched during the 1961 negotiations.


Author(s):  
Dan Jerker B. Svantesson

This chapter explores the role geo-location technologies may play on the road towards achieving jurisdictional interoperability. The relevant technologies involved are introduced briefly, their accuracy examined, and an overview is provided of their use, including the increasingly common use of so-called geo-blocking. Attention is then given to perceived and real concerns stemming from the use of geo-location technologies and how these technologies impact international law, territoriality, and sovereignty, as well as to the role these technologies may play in law reform. The point is made that the current ‘effect-focused’ rules in both private international law and public international law (as those disciplines are traditionally defined), are likely to continue to work as an incentive for the use of geo-location technologies.


2020 ◽  
pp. 002252662097950
Author(s):  
Fredrik Bertilsson

This article contributes to the research on the expansion of the Swedish post-war road network by illuminating the role of tourism in addition to political and industrial agendas. Specifically, it examines the “conceptual construction” of the Blue Highway, which currently stretches from the Atlantic Coast of Norway, traverses through Sweden and Finland, and enters into Russia. The focus is on Swedish governmental reports and national press between the 1950s and the 1970s. The article identifies three overlapping meanings attached to the Blue Highway: a political agenda of improving the relationships between the Nordic countries, industrial interests, and tourism. Political ambitions of Nordic community building were clearly pronounced at the onset of the project. Industrial actors depended on the road for the building of power plants and dams. The road became gradually more connected with the view of tourism as the motor of regional development.


1897 ◽  
Vol 17 ◽  
pp. 319-320 ◽  
Author(s):  
Frank Calvert

I derive the materials of the present paper from some memoranda which I find amongst my archaeological notes and which relate to certain explorations to which I was not a party, made so long ago as 1887. I have thought that the particulars then obtained may be deemed sufficiently interesting to deserve a record in the history of Trojan archaeological discovery.The subject is one of the four small tumuli dotted about and near the hill of Balli-Dagh, the crest of which according to the now exploded theory of Le Chevalier (1785) was supposed to represent the Pergamos of Troy. In a memoir contributed to the Journal of the Archaeological Institute of 1864, I proved that the site in question was no other than that of the ancient city of Gergis. In the same paper I gave an account of the results of the excavation of one of the group of three tumuli on Balli-Dagh, the so-named Tomb of Priam. The other two, namely Le Chevalier's Tomb of Hector, and an unnamed hillock, were excavated respectively by Sir John Lubbock (about 1878) and Dr. Schliemann (1882) without result. The present relates to the fourth mound on the road between the villages of Bournarbashi and Arablar (as shown in the published maps), which goes by the name of Choban Tepeh (Shepherd's hillock) and the Tomb of Paris, according to Rancklin (1799).


This volume is the first-ever collection devoted to teaching Beat literature in high school to graduate-level classes. Essays address teaching topics such as the history of the censorship of Beat writing, Beat spirituality, the small press revolution, Beat composition techniques and ELL, Beat multiculturalism/globalism and its legacies, techno-poetics, the road tale, Beat drug use, the Italian-American Beat heritage, Beats and the visual arts of the 1960s, the Beat and Black Mountain confluence, Beat comedy, Beat performance poetry, Beat creative non-fiction, West coast-East/coast Beat communities, and Beat representations of race, gender, class, and ethnicity. Individual essays focus on Gary Snyder’s ecopoetics, William S. Burroughs’s post- and transhumanism, Jack Kerouac’s On the Road (teaching it in the U.S. and abroad) and his Quebecois novels, Allen Ginsberg, Diane di Prima, ruth weiss, Joyce Johnson, Joanne Kyger, Bob Kaufman, and Anne Waldman. Many additional Beat-associated writers, such as Amiri Baraka Gregory Corso, are featured in the other essays. The collection opens with a comprehensive essay by Nancy M. Grace on a history of Beat literature, its reception in and out of academia, and contemporary approaches to teaching Beat literature in multidisciplinary contexts. Many of the essays highlight online resources and other materials proven useful in the classroom. Critical methods range from feminism/gender theory, to critical race theory, formalism, historiography, religious studies, and transnational theory to reception theory. The volume concludes with selected scholarly resources, both primary and secondary, including films, music, and other art forms; and a set of Beat-related classroom assignments recommended by active Beat scholars and teachers.


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