The Future of Education

Global level Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) policy emerging from the Centre for Educational Research and Innovation (CERI), and in particular the ‘Innovation Strategy for Education and Training’ (2018), urges new ways to be found to equip people with skills for innovation. Innovation as part of an educational agenda is now, for example, seeing the installation of innovation labs in wealthy schools in the USA that include creative collaborative spaces, replete with high-tech robotics, 3D printers, artificial intelligence, and smart TVs, in addition to usual woodwork benches and handcraft project areas (Traweek, 2017 and 2018). As part of policy filtered around the world and down to the national and regional level, schools and their students in the United Arab Emirates (UAE) are not immune to this mandate to innovate either. The UAE National Innovation Strategy (Ministry of Cabinet Affairs, 2015) has earmarked education as one of its 7 innovation priority sectors to drive future innovation to create a culture of innovation among individuals, companies and government. High quality education is seen as a vehicle by which to enable the national strategy and to create the right foundation for the country to achieve its innovation ambitions (ibid.). This paper will provide an up to date appraisal of innovation strategy as prioritized globally and being implemented in the education sector in schools, with particular reference to the example of the United Arab Emirates (UAE). Data emerging from a 2018 qualitative survey of 13 school teachers and leaders representing 11 different UAE schools from 3 separate emirates will be reported on to explore the extent to which innovation is currently embedded in school teaching and learning practices as well as whole school activity, and the impact it is currently recognized as having as evidenced by such indices as winning innovation prizes, registering patents, or other indicators suggested by research participants. The results of the survey will be shared here and discussed in the context of the UAE National Innovation Strategy. A list of school level enablers and barriers for innovation will also be presented, with recommendations for practice and further research.

Keywords: Innovation, UAE, schools, enablers, barriers, success factors;