DUBAI - The Ministry of Education and Youth will implement a new programme of a 'substitute teacher' from the next academic year.
The programme is being implemented with the aim of hiring teachers to replace those who go on maternity leave for more than two months, as stipulated by Article 55 of the Civil Service Law No 21 of 2001.
The new programme is designed to solve the problem of the shortage of teachers and will increase the Emiratisation of administrative and teaching jobs at the government schools to 90 per cent.
Article 55 stipulates granting the employee (female) a special leave with paid salary for two months, besides half salary for the next two more months and leave without pay for the subsequent two months. In view of this, the overall maternity leave of the teacher come to six months at any given time. And the teacher is entitled to maternity leave on five occasion during her period of service.
Keeping this in view, the ministry has decided to create the 'substitute teacher' with the intent to keep the work of teachers uninterrupted. The ministry will start receiving applications for replacing teachers on maternity leave from September, sources said.
Meanwhile, sources at the Human Resources Department at the ministry said the assessment for the substitute teacher would be conducted during the field visits by the educational inspectors to the various schools.