Teach Middle East Podcast
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Teach Middle East Podcast
Shaping the Future of Education in Abu Dhabi: Inside ADEK’s New Policies with Sylvie Wald
The episode explores ADEK's introduction of 39 new policies aimed at enhancing education in Abu Dhabi. These policies focus on collaboration, student well-being, and cultural relevance.
Sylvie Wald discusses the comprehensive approach to policy-making that incorporates feedback from schools, ensuring that the new guidelines meet the needs of both educators and students.
• Introduction to the guest, Sylvie Wald, and her role at ADEK
• Overview of the policy-making process and its emphasis on collaboration
• Discussion on the new focus on student well-being in the policies
• Cultural considerations taken into account during the policy formulation
• Insights into the new ICT and technology policy and its relevance
• Balancing local cultural norms with global educational standards
• Anticipated impacts on student development and school dynamics
• Challenges faced by schools during the implementation of new policies
Bio: Sylvie is the Education Policy Office Director at ADEK, where she oversees the development of policies for early education institutions (EEI) and private schools in Abu Dhabi. She has nearly 20 years of experience in the field of education, particularly in academic publishing and higher and K-12 education policy.
LinkedIn Profile: https://www.linkedin.com/in/sylvie-wald-09414a50/details/education/
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Speaker 2:Hey everyone, this is Lisa Grace, and welcome back to the Teach Middle East podcast, or better yet, welcome If this is your first time listening. Today I have Sylvie Wald on the podcast with me Now. Sylvie is the Education Policy Office Director for ADEC. I think I got all of that right, did I, sylvie?
Speaker 3:Absolutely. It is a mouthful.
Speaker 2:It is a mouthful. Now. Adec is a familiar place to me. As everyone knows, I worked for ADEC for many years, and so to be talking to someone from ADEC obviously not from my time is always good, because I'm always like what's the office goss, who left who's there? But I won't be doing that today. Today we're on serious business, because we want to talk about the new policies that have been updated, and we're not talking about one policy or two policies. You know. We're talking about 39 policies and 27 new early education policies, so it is a policy fiesta today. Welcome to the podcast, sylvie. Thank you for having me.
Speaker 2:Okay, now here's the thing about talking on this podcast Our guests love to know who we're talking to. So before we talk about policy, which guys? You guys know it's a bit dry, isn't it? But we have to learn because we have to follow policy. Sylvie, where did your career begin? Where are you from?
Speaker 3:So I'm actually French. I have a French father, a Korean mother.
Speaker 3:I grew up as an expat child in Hong Kong as well as in France, so being in Abu Dhabi actually speaks to me very much, because a lot of the students for whom we're creating these policies to make sure that they've got kind of the best of the best that education has to offer is, you know, I see myself in these kids. So that's kind of where I started. But in terms of my trajectory, of course I didn't study education in the beginning. I was actually looking to become a doctor and then, after a couple of you know professional pathway changes, here and there, I found my calling, which is education policy. It's an area of policy in the area, like you said, it is dry, oftentimes it's just. You said it is dry, oftentimes it's just. You know, it's like reading terms and conditions, but I am extremely passionate about this. It's something that always baffles my colleagues, but there we go.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it's interesting because we always do it. So I used to be a principal with ADHC and we always used to say, according to the policy guys, this is what we ought to do. And then we always used to get these policies and we used to read them through and then formulate, obviously, the policies for our schools based on the ADDIC policies. So when you're formulating policies, what is the process that you go through? Give me the skinny version.
Speaker 3:Sure. So I'm really happy to do that, because I think now at Addict we really have a robust and, more than anything, the keyword is collaborative we have a really collaborative approach to making sure that we're developing policies. I think a lot of you know my colleagues, policymakers all around the world, will absolutely agree with me when I say the worst kind of policies are those that are just imposed top down. That you know. Some people say this is what we need to do, and then, you know, a law or policy or some piece of legislation is issued, and then schools find themselves on the other end being like wait, but I can't do this in my school, it doesn't work in my context, and so and the research shows as well anytime you see any sort of you know policy recommendation about you know situations where a certain policy has been borrowed from one area or benchmarked with another region, one of the biggest policy recommendations is always make sure that it has been contextualized locally, and so, from that standpoint, we have put collaboration as the keystone in our policy process. So we made sure, I mean, had we just gone ahead and thought, okay, our policies from 2014, the old school policies, these are, you know, we know they're a little bit out of date, they're using terminology we no longer use, they're not covering subject areas that we think are now applicable. And having just a small group of people decide that we could have finished this project in six months, that is not what we wanted to do.
Speaker 3:We wanted to make sure that whatever we were going to have replaced those old policies were co-owned with our schools. So instead we embarked on a three-year journey where we started this all off with a big survey. We reached out to schools. We said hey guys, here are the old policies, what do you think of them? So you know, we got their feedback, okay, and we wanted to ask them how relevant are they? What do you think of the coverage of the policies? Do you find them clear? Do you like the structure? Are they feasible in terms of implementing them in your schools? These kinds of questions. So we got phenomenal feedback on that initial survey, which we then said, okay, let's go into it a little bit more deeply.
Speaker 3:So we had a series of focus groups as well, with as many schools as wanted to come and speak to us to learn a little bit more about what they thought of the old policies, and that kind of kicked off a long journey where we then looked at the old policies and at that time we actually had 81. It was one manual, but it had 81 different policies, and so what we did was we just, you know, we've merged, here and there We've added new policies, but sometimes we've also deleted old policies, which is why we now have 39. It's a less daunting number, but nonetheless it does reflect all of that work that was originally present, so to speak. So, in terms of again making sure that they were collaborative, we then engaged in a process where we grouped those 81 policies into about 40 different areas and then, for each policy, we also had a survey sent around to schools every single school.
Speaker 3:We also then did focus groups, and it was on a volunteering basis. We invited everyone to come and give us feedback on that specific policy, and in some cases we had all schools attending. In some cases, you know, some schools were not interested in financial audit policy. They were like we can skip this one. So it really was flexible in order to make sure that schools could voice their opinions where they feel that it was necessary. On top of that sorry, I know you're probably ready to move on to the next- question.
Speaker 2:I'm not, I linger. I linger for the actual value in what you're saying. So you carry on, because schools want to know how this really takes place.
Speaker 3:Well, this will be for the public, because schools already know no no, no, remember, Adek is Abu Dhabi, but schools. Us all over yes.
Speaker 2:Okay, fair enough.
Speaker 3:So, yeah, so it wasn't. We didn't just stop there. We then made sure of course, all of these policies involved other types of stakeholders. If we had policies related to the health sector, we made sure we worked with the health authorities and reviewing them as well. If it was related to transportation, you know, whatever it might be. So we had about 15 different regulators also work with us on reviewing all the different policies. Not only that, we also had a larger kind of investor workshop to understand, you know, from their perspective, what are, and of course we didn't do it so frequently with them, but it was a bigger session where we came and talked more generally about the policies. We also did a few parent sessions as well. And then for different policies we had so for within those kind of 40 or so groups, we had surveys. But we also did additional follow-up focus groups. So we invited schools and we told them okay, not only you know they, obviously our communication is with the school leadership but we said bring your practitioners. Today we're going to be talking about the career and university guidance policy. Well then, bring your career and university guidance counselor. Today we're going to be talking about mental health Well then, bring your counselor, whatever it might be. You know, inclusion bring your.
Speaker 3:You know, at that time we called them SENCOs, et cetera. So it was a work where we really dealt into each policy from a technical perspective, practitioner's perspective as well as leadership perspective and made sure that we captured as much of the feedback as possible, moving on. Once we actually drafted those and had those reviewed as well by our partner regulators. We then went back to schools and we said, okay, guys, we now actually have a draft. So we want to know how many of you are actually interested in doing some of the more hardcore work with us, which is reviewing the text of the draft itself. We were really lucky because of the when we started, we had about 203 schools.
Speaker 3:At that time, ninety nine schools volunteered to be part of what we call the principal working group, and obviously we can have all 19 on at the same time. So each time we reviewed a draft of the policy, we selected about 20 or so principals on a first come, first serve basis, but also we did a random selection to make sure there was representation in each of those principal working groups in order to represent the diversity of curricula, fee ranges, the size of school, et cetera. So then we worked with those 20 principals, we sent them a copy of the draft. They read them in advance, and then we spent the sessions getting their final feedback. Does the text make sense to you? Is it clear? Is it worded in a way that works for you? Will this be feasible in your school? Can you implement it? No, if not, how can we amend it? So this is three years later. This is where we are.
Speaker 2:How did you come down to 39?
Speaker 3:That's a very good question. Again, we worked on making sure that it made sense from a user perspective as well. So you know there are different topics, of course. We you know they're kind of three general buckets. There's anything concerning kind of operations of the school and governance as well. There's teaching and learning related policies, and then others that are more kind of health, safety and well-being related and learning related policies, and then others that are more kind of health, safety and well-being related.
Speaker 3:And it's hard to kind of put them in buckets because a lot of them actually address all areas. You know, for example, well-being. That's an area where you know it is let's we put it it's primarily in the health and well-being bucket, but there are aspects of governance. You need to have a well-being committee. You need to make sure that you you know your school have a well-being strategy in place that's reviewed by the board, et cetera. And then it also affects, of course, teaching and learning, because we're talking about making sure that well-being you know children's well-being and social, emotional learning. These are all aspects that are also embedded into the curriculum. So you know, it was really just about looking at the different categories and seeing, okay, well, how and again.
Speaker 2:This is always fluid too, you know.
Speaker 3:So at this point, for example, we had at that time with the old policy. There was a separate one on attendance, another one on admissions, another one on graduation, on promotion, whatever it might be. So those, for example, we said, well, it's all kind of related to student administrative affairs and things like that. So we grouped them into a student administrative affairs policy. Others, for example, around counseling services. That was an old policy. That was very kind of general in terms of you need to have counseling services. It'd be a good idea if you had career counseling as well, but it's not really required. You know, have fun with that.
Speaker 3:Again, you know those policies were written at a different time. They were starter policies and they really worked well for that setting. But we saw that and we said, ok, we need to separate out, for example, social emotional counseling versus career and university counseling, which is very, very targeted. So we split that policy up into two. Career and university is now its own, and anything related to social emotional that we put into both the student mental health policy and there's also a staff wellbeing policy, so integrated in different ways?
Speaker 2:Yeah, and there are policies for early education 27 of them and did you follow the same process in formulating and ratifying those policies as well?
Speaker 3:So the early education policies came about a year after we began with the school policies. The priority, of course, was to revise the existing policies. But a year later, actually, one of the things that we also noticed well, not that we noticed, but that has been that we've been aware of for a while that we said we actually need to make sure we do this, that we've been aware of for a while, that we said we actually need to make sure we do this, is to actually have policies for what we're now just calling nurseries. But we said, okay, well, this sector is an area that really, you know, we're going to be growing this in the next couple of years and you've seen, in the past year there's kind of been an explosion of the early education scene. So to really supplement that, there was a priority to okay, let's not wait until we're finished with the school policies, let's kind of jump straight into the early education institutions policies as well. So that we had a slightly tighter deadline as well. So we weren't able to do it in exactly the same way, but nonetheless we started by drafting all of the policies. We started with a smaller group as a sample about 40 of the 200 plus nurseries and we really kind of shaped them a little bit more again, given the time constraints, but then really made sure that by the time we had the policies in place, we organized a huge event in December 2023, where we invited all the nurseries as well to come inform them, share the policies with them and inform them of what was to come, and use that session really to gather their feedback.
Speaker 3:And once that was done as well, we spent the latter part of this year. We actually had soft launches, so we shared them internally with schools and separately with nurseries earlier on in the year. What we did then was engage in a series of training sessions so that they were kind of all up to date on that. But one of the fantastic aspects that came out of those training sessions was we had about 5,000 participants 4,000 from school and a little bit more about 1,000 or so from the nurseries and they asked us such wonderful questions and we had a live Q&A. We had a team on hand answering their questions. But we said, ok, we don't just want to leave these questions as is. There's some really pertinent things and really pertinent feedback that we really believe should be integrated into the policy, and so we also use that as an opportunity to update the policies before they went public.
Speaker 2:OK, and so when you talk about ADDIC's support of schools and EEIs in achieving these policies, you did touch on that a little, but how far reaching is that support?
Speaker 3:Yeah, that's a very good question. So, first of all, we started off with these training sessions and we'll continue doing these because these are extremely important, of course, for leadership as well as for practitioners. So, again, it was kind of more limited, but we absolutely plan moving forward in 2025 to have other opportunities whether it's these live events or other resources for these kinds of trainings for each policy to continue. Not only that, but we are also developing other resources to help support them. So each policy will also have a policy guide attached to it.
Speaker 3:So if you want to compare, let's say, the old 2014 policies with the new ones, those were written in a way where it told you what you needed to do, so what's actual policy? But there's also guidance there. So it was like you need to make sure to have, as I mentioned earlier, have counseling services for your students. So that's technically a requirement. So that's technically a requirement. So that's a policy. And then there were some good recommendations on best practice. You know it would be good idea to have a counselor in your school. It'd be a good idea to also provide career guidance services, but those were not requirements.
Speaker 3:Those are kind of best practice and recommendations, and so what we did with this new policy since what we're kind of aiming for was clarity, was strip away everything so that the policies only focus on requirements for schools and everything else, which is more around guidance, giving them best practice, recommendations, advice and whatnot we're now externalizing that into a policy guide so that they're not having to filter okay, what do I need to do, versus oh God, this is just extra text in here, and whatnot. So yeah, the next year, all the policies will also have policy guides, and this is for the 27 EEI policies and for the school policies. The majority of them will have guides. Some of them will also come externally. We've got documents coming from our regulatory partners that will serve as guides instead documents coming from our regulatory partners that will serve as guides instead.
Speaker 2:Yeah, that's very, very key, because I remember the old policies and there were a lot in there and we weren't sure what's the requirement and what is an actual advice or suggestion. So this new policy, these 39, when you look at them, you know that your school is required to stick to this policy, as it is mandated. Talk to me about the consideration, then, that you have made when it comes on to formulating the policies against you know the cultural norms of Abu Dhabi, because Abu Dhabi is a peculiar beast. Like. I lived in Al Ain for many years. Shout out to Al Ain, my favorite city, and then I obviously moved to. Abu Dhabi is a peculiar beast. Like. I lived in Al Ain for many years. Shout out to Al Ain, my favorite city, and then I obviously moved to Abu Dhabi city, and it is not the same place. I know that sounds weird, but Al Ain is a whole different place compared to Abu Dhabi. How did you like look at the policies in terms of their cultural nuances?
Speaker 3:Yeah, that's a very good question. I just realized also, before I do answer, that I forgot to mention one very important thing which supports your latter question is that also, not only will there be kind of resources this is a little bit more passive, if you will but we also actively have teams going into schools to support them with their readiness. So one way we're also supporting them is we know this is going to be super overwhelming for them 39 new policies that they have to implement so we worked with them and said, guys, what would help you? So already we got their feedback in terms of how we can actively help, but the most important thing is actually we're releasing them now. They've had them since January, but the compliance states don't kick in until next year for most of them. So this is a new concept that didn't exist in the previous policies, but the idea was to give them essentially a grace period to implement those policies, because we know it takes time, it takes resources, they're not going to be able to do it overnight. So that was our first way of really providing support, saying, guys, you do have the time to be able to transition into it. Not only that, though we're providing them with other than the resources that I mentioned support visits. So we have different teams. For example, our inclusion team is they're visiting schools individually and looking at each school in their own context to not only say, ok, well, how are you meeting the policy, how are you just preparing them so that they are ready to be compliant by the next academic year, by which you know that it will be a little bit more high stakes. So there's a lot of support visits happening that are being handled by the different technical teams within ADEC as well. So I did just want to mention that.
Speaker 3:On your point about the cultural kind of considerations for Abu Dhabi, this was so important to us because we do live in a context where, you know, I mean, let's think about it this country is only, you know, 53 years old.
Speaker 3:It's, in the larger scheme of things, it's very new. It's a very new country and we know, having been here you have been here as well as long as you have that there has been so much change that has happened in the last 10, 15, 20 years. You know, even for people who have been here for five years, they've noticed a significant shift in what's going on, and so I think it's fair to say that UAE nationals, they're experiencing cultural changes that are happening at the speed of light. You know, between their grandparents' generations to their parents, to, you know, the students of today, there are major, major generational shifts that have happened, and so one of the things that, as well, our policy is so mindful of is to make sure that, in the midst of all this, there is always a root in the local culture and the UAE's cultural norms and values, and making sure that the policies do respect UAE cultural norms and values and traditions, because these are something that really makes the UAE educational system what it is being rooted in.
Speaker 2:That, yeah, I love the fact that you considered the schools and gave that grace period, because there is nothing worse than getting a policy with an overnight enactment clause and you're like, oh my God, how do I you know? But let's unpack a little bit some of the policies. So I've heard a lot about the new ICT in technology policy and I don't want to put you like on the spot to explain the policy. But there's been a lot of talk about that policy and I don't know why I haven't fully read it. I read parts of it. Why do you think there's such a buzz around that particular policy item?
Speaker 3:That's a very good question. Well, I think again, this is a policy that is so relevant to our day and age and, interestingly enough, in 2014, we did have a policy that the digital policy was built on. It had a fantastic name and I mentioned this all the time. You know, if schools are listening to this, they'll say oh God, here she goes again with this story. I can't remember the actual name of the policy, but it was something like you know policy I don't know, 42, protecting students against the dangers of the global information network, and then, in parentheses, the Internet. So this was kind of how we approached things back in 2014, which was okay. There's a thing called the Internet. We know schools have to engage with it and we're kind of fearful of it, which is why we're like we have to protect students against this. You know, and it was there was maybe two paragraphs in that old policy.
Speaker 3:Today, I think, we are aware of the fact that we have to be even more wary of the digital space. However, that's only from a safeguarding perspective. There's so many benefits and we cannot have our students lag behind in the area of digital competencies. So that policy has really been rewritten with keeping that in mind, making sure that it's really about making sure that students are building their digital competencies and that schools also have in place you know, that they're working on a digital strategy for themselves that works for themselves, that addresses all those different areas while, of course, simultaneously and let's you know, more than anything else making sure that they are protected in the digital space.
Speaker 3:So, yes, it's not just about you know, digital competencies and digital safeguarding, but also making sure that you know the systems are themselves protecting it, but that students, you know we are also dealing with AI, a completely new area that you know. A lot of schools are saying, well, we want to use it. We don't really know how to use it. And as government, we're saying, well, we want to, we want to encourage it, we want our children to be able to navigate this, but there are also lots of, you know, of ethical questions and whatever else around that. So this digital policy was really necessary in order to at least set those foundational bases for how to engage with the digital space, which has become ubiquitous today.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, I get it. As you mentioned AI. So in April of 2025, we're hosting Teach Middle East. We're hosting the first AI in education summit here in the UAE, and a lot of schools. Their questions are all around how can we use it safely? And so when we gather the thought leaders and the schools in the space, that's probably going to be one of the very key questions that we're going to try and answer at that summit next year. How can we use AI? Because we can't run away from it, because it's literally in our phone. Samsung has a phone called AI, samsung blah, blah, blah AI. It's even in the name, so it's going to be everywhere. But you touched on something when we talked about making the policies culturally relevant. How do you balance that cultural and local relevance with global standards, because you know this is a global society that we live in? How are those policies balanced between the local and the global?
Speaker 3:Yeah, that's a good question and that touches back on what you were saying about. You know, preserving kind of the local culture. You know the kind of, you know stark, visible differences you can see between Al Ain and Abu Dhabi. So part of that was making sure that, again, they were culturally, locally relevant for the cultural context and I spoke more broadly about it. But you know there are aspects where we are making sure that there is a root in national identity.
Speaker 3:So, for example, for the early education institution policies and their food and nutrition, or even in their teaching and the learning development policies, we really make sure that that is addressed.
Speaker 3:So now, for example, all young children who are in nurseries will have to be exposed to the Arabic language on a daily basis, and this does not just apply to UAE nationals.
Speaker 3:If you are a young expat child who is living in the UAE, what better offering than to start you off on learning a second language as early as when you're in nursery? And of course, it should be the local language which is Arabic. This will also give them a footing in terms of being able to address Arabic and learn Arabic more fluently when they're in school, which is also a compulsory item. So it's about not only about preserving the local culture, but about preparing children for school readiness, at least from this linguistic component. There are other aspects, such as, you know, making sure that children in nurseries are exposed to Emirati dishes once a week, for example, just so that they develop a taste, and again you're, you know, as an expat child you're also, you're a guest and, as much as this can be your home, you are a guest in the country and it's important for you to you know, be able to be familiar with.
Speaker 3:You know different concepts, tastes, senses and the unwritten word. You know those types of cultural aspects when it comes to your development and growth, in terms as well of kind of. You know to touch more upon what you talked about you know the global standards, making sure that they're meeting the local context. I think in a lot of situations when we do do the benchmarking, we find things that works in one context but, for example, a lot of the policies we found really really dealt into curriculum In the Abu Dhabi context. This is not something that we could do.
Speaker 3:The Ministry of Education, perhaps, would be in a space where they could develop a full curriculum for a certain topic, let's say AI or whatever it might be.
Speaker 3:As regulators at ADEC, we had to be mindful of the fact that we have over 200 schools representing, you know, over 15 or more curricula. You have many different languages of instructions and not only that, where each of these curricula are also having to address and meet their own national standards. You know whether it's the Bangladeshi curriculum or, you know, Japanese curriculum, or French or whatever it might be. And so we always took those best practices and said, ok, in order for this to, we can't have it as a one size fits all, so how can we contextualize this so that it's as broadly applicable as possible? And we did that, of course, through the collaboration with school, saying OK, okay, how can we? We want this to be applied in your school, but from your perspective, how does it work in Bangladesh? How does it work in Japan? You know how does it work in France and Germany or in, you know, whatever it might be. And what can we kind of agree upon that's universal to all of us, that it can be applied as part of our policy.
Speaker 2:Yeah, makes sense Because as a regulator, your job is to ensure the system works, not to get into sort of like the fine-tune. So what impact do you anticipate, yeah, that these policies will have on student well-being, their holistic development, moving the schools of Abu Dhabi forward? What's your anticipation?
Speaker 3:Well, of course, our hope is that it will all be for the better, it will all be for the positive, and I think, just in terms of I mean, the biggest shift I think we can say in a nutshell, between the old policies and the new, and the new policies as well, is the focus on well-being. So in the 2014 policies, you may have seen a policy or two that touches upon the notion of, you know, student protection here, you know, making sure that students are well for counseling. This is how it was addressed and we found, when we did the survey, the biggest area that was, you know, we had, relevance coverage, some of the other things. Coverage was the biggest area where people felt disagreed in terms of, you know, do the old policies cover the broad range of things that should be covered in a school? And then when we dug a little bit deeper into that question and we said well, you know, if you said that it doesn't cover or the coverage is not sufficient, then what areas do need to be addressed? And in 90% of those cases, it was well-being how the policies need to address this and in 90% of those cases, it was well-being how policies need to address this.
Speaker 3:So we have about 14 new well-being specific policies, although we can say all the policies somehow address well-being. But this is an area where, of course, we expect there to be the biggest impact, that it's not just looking at schools as places of academic learning, but where children do develop socially, emotionally, as a whole person, in which academics is only one part of that. And so we have, for example, a new PE and sports policy to make sure that children are engaged in physical activity on a daily basis. We have a new mental health policy to make sure that children or students are receiving the type of support they need if they feel that they have been bullied, if they're just having anxiety issues in their schools, whatever it might be. We also have a new extracurricular activities and events policy, which makes sure that students are being given opportunities to explore areas outside of academics, whether it's being able to partake in activities that are more athletic or artistic or philanthropic, or whatever it might be.
Speaker 3:We have, you know, inclusion. Oh my gosh. That is one policy which is just phenomenal in terms of making sure that we're addressing all students and all of their needs, not just students who, you know, let's say, have had a diagnosis, you know, moving away kind of from a medical perspective of what inclusion means and addressing any student that has any sort of learning need, whether they're diagnosed or not, in the most comprehensive way possible, not allowing student schools even to turn them away. They actually have to apply to ADDIC and notify us, and there's a process in which ADDIC will either validate that or overturn it and say actually the student can be supported in your school and they will provide advice on how you can do that and whatnot. So in terms of kind of the impact that this will have on student well-being and holistic development, I can't agree more that this addresses exactly that and hopefully we will see the impact of that in a few years, once these policies have had the chance to mature and be implemented in schools.
Speaker 2:And what hurdles do you anticipate schools will have?
Speaker 3:Oh lots, there will be any. I think. Just as human nature, we're not comfortable with change, and so you know it is going to take a lot of work. You know some people will say this is an absolute burden on us, but it will be our responsibility, along with the school leadership, to work with teachers, different practitioners in schools, parents as well as well as students, to make sure that you know what we are doing is for the betterment of the student experience, for the betterment of student learning outcomes, and that will take resources, that will take time, that will take, you know, additional professional development, whatever it might be, and those are all, let's say, positive obstacles. That's how I see it.
Speaker 2:Brilliant. Is there anything I should have asked you that I didn't ask you that you would like to tell us about? Should have asked you that I didn't ask you that you would like to tell us about? That's my last question.
Speaker 3:Anyway, goodness had I I'm not sure, no, I think I've covered everything.
Speaker 3:I just I can't emphasize just how proud we are of these policies and just I'm just so grateful I think ADEC as a whole, we're so grateful to have been able to use this as a context to really build our relationship with schools and to really hear back from them. These focus groups. They're not just about hearing back from them about how we can improve the policies, but I feel in many ways they've become safe spaces for practitioners to be able to just talk about some of the concerns they have and hear back from us. To be able to just talk about some of the concerns they have and hear back from us, get advice on how they can work around things in a more compliant fashion, or whatever it might be. So I think that's something that I really want to emphasize on. It's just, you know, thank you to all the schools, to all the principals, to all the practitioners, every stakeholder we've ever worked with, to be able to have that opportunity to really make sure that we're having an impact on students in Abu Dhabi.
Speaker 2:Ah, thank you, Sylvie. Thank you so much for being on the podcast with me today.
Speaker 3:Thank you, lisa, it was a pleasure.
Speaker 2:You're welcome. You're welcome.
Speaker 1:Thank you for listening to the Teach Middle East podcast. Visit our website teachmiddleeastcom and follow us on social media. The links are in the show notes.
