His Excellency Sheikh Hamdan bin Mubarak Al Nahyan, Minister of Higher Education and Scientific Research confirmed, on the occasion of World Science Day for Peace and Development, which is celebrated on, November 10th of each year, that the leadership and institutions of State are moving forward with the development and formulation of a comprehensive and sustainable strategy for the education and higher education and scientific research sectors, which fits the requirements of the next developmental stages, achieves UAE Vision 2021, and achieves the aspirations of the Emiratis for future generations. His Excellency believes that this strategy is capable of supplying all sectors of the State to ensure the common interest of the overall economy, investment, employment, social protection, and environmental policies and objectives, and improve their integration, and that such a strategy will also work to find significant improvements in the quality of jobs and income, and it pushes forward equity and social inclusion on a large scale in order to achieve Emiratization, which is one of the most important goals of the Union.
His Excellency congratulated all students, faculty members, researchers, and institutions supporting scientific research in the State today, stressing that the scientific research way is the only option for the UAE to stay at the forefront.
On the occasion of this international day, Director-General of UNESCO made it clear that the unlimited energy and innovative abilities of young men and women must be taken care of more than ever, in order to cope with the complex new challenges in an era of limited resources, in order to lay the foundation for building a more sustainable future for all. So this year’s theme is “Quality Science Education: ensuring a sustainable future for all”.
She said in her speech on this occasion that “there is a need for concerted action to halt the decline of enrollment of young people in science, starting at an early stage, and it is not enough to put science in the school curriculum, we must build a supportive environment by crafting educational policies that give equal access to girls and boys, and by investing in laboratories and resources where they can take the lead. We must recognize the importance of traditional and indigenous knowledge, while also harnessing new information and communication technologies for innovation and creativity. All of this is essential to foster more equitable and inclusive growth and to improve employability and entrepreneurial opportunities, while strengthening social resilience and health”.
“To these ends, UNESCO is working to integrate Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics (STEM) into national development and education policies in some countries, and recently, the Global STEM Alliance was launched with the New York Academy of Sciences to connect the dots between the government, the United Nations, the private Sector, and academia on an issue at heart of all efforts to build a sustainable future. UNESCO World Library of Science was launched in cooperation with Roche and Nature Education, which is a free online resource for science learning that contains hundreds of peer-reviewed articles, using texts, illustrations, and videos to make scientific concepts easy to understand”.
UNESCO’s action focuses on women, as it was able through L’Oréal UNESCO For Women in Science Program to inspire and support them into scientific careers, which was supported by the UAE Ministry of Higher Education and Scientific Research in its Arabic version for two consecutive years.
In a report issued in October 2014 by the World Economic Forum on bridging the gap between men and women based on a study of 133 countries, the UAE ranked first at the level of the Middle East and North Africa countries, by achieving a distinct gender equality in the quality of education and other standards that the global study relied upon, which included economic and political participation, and equality in the field of health care for women in these countries.
The report of the General Assembly of the Economic and Social Council of the United Nations, under the title “Harnessing Science and Technology for Development”, issued in March 2014 in order to assess the progress in the implementation of and follow-up on the World Summit’s results of the Information Society at the regional and international levels, said that ESCWA confirmed that the Arab region has made great strides towards achieving the goals of the World Summit for the Information Society.
