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Certificates warning to Grade 12 students

ABU DHABI — Students should not possess more than one certificate for their higher secondary qualification and the schools issuing them will be penalised, said a senior official at the Ministry of Education and Youth (MoEY).

Speaking to Khaleej Times yesterday, Naima Al Aryani, Director, Private and Foreign Schools at the ministry said that schools are not authorised to give two different certificates for the same qualification.

"In such cases, ministry will consider one as null and void and will not attest the certificate. The 12th grade certificate of the students should specify the one educational programme they had pursued — either the CBSC, ICSE, American or British," she stated in the light of some such recent cases.

In the same context, Ms Naima has cautioned students not to enroll in unlicensed schools or programmes to avoid getting stranded when they have to take up higher education in either the UAE or abroad.

"Students will also face problems while applying for a transfer or attestation of documents if the schools or the particular programme is not approved by the ministry."

"We always advise parents to verify the credential of the school before admitting their children," she stated in the light of some cases where the schools have functioned in disregard to ministerial directions.

"Some schools are running two different curricula, though they are licensed to have only one. So it is also necessary to verify whether the programmes they offer are approved by us, even if the school is licensed," she added.

She also pointed that the ministry is taking steps to reconstitute the registration books followed by the schools in a more professional way as to streamline the entire process.

"The registration books for each programme would be done separately and the ones for grades nine and upwards will be kept separately. The registrations should be done in such a way that it specifies all academic aspects like the periodicity of each stream and the board of exam it is affiliated with. It will ease our equivalency procedure and will also give the parents a better idea of each curriculum and its particulars," she added.