Ministerial council announces school calendar for next three years

The Ministerial Development Council, under the chairmanship of Sheikh Mansour Bin Zayed Al Nahyan, Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Presidential Affairs, has adopted the public and private school calendar for the next three years, to strengthen the national education system.

The decision will establish a clear and detailed timeline of school days and holidays, to achieve integration between schools and families, according to the best international teaching practices.

The decision identified all details related to school days, including the start of the academic year for public and private schools, vacations and public holidays.

The calendar was drafted after extensive research and was adopted by the Education and Human Resources Council, under the chairmanship of Sheikh Abdullah Bin Zayed Al Nahyan, Minister of Foreign Affairs and International Cooperation.

In detail, the decision aimed to identify the date of the start of the academic year for all public and private schools in the country, and stipulates that the school year for 2020-2021 started on Aug.30, 2020, while school year 2021-2022 and 2022-2023 the academic year will start on Aug.29, 2021 and Aug.28, 2022, respectively.

The Council obliges all schools to follow the unified school calendar and to take a three-week winter break, which will be from Dec.13-31, 2020, for the 2020-2021 academic year; from Dec.12-30, 2021, for the 2021-2022 academic year, and from Dec.11-Jan.1, 2022, for the 2022-2023 academic year.

All schools will take a three-week spring break from March 28 - April 15 for the 2020-2021 academic year; from March 27 - April 14 for the 2021-2022 academic year, and from March 26 - April 13 for the 2022-2023 academic year.

It also identified the number of schools days for schools following the curriculum of the Ministry of Education, which will be 188 days in the 2020-2021 academic year; 186 days in the 2021 to 2022 academic year, and 188 days in the 2022-2023 academic year. All schools that do not follow the curriculum of the ministry must have a minimum of 182 school days.

The summer break for all schools around the country will not exceed 8.2 weeks and excludes schools following Asian curriculums, such as Indian, Pakistani, Bangladesh and Japanese.

WAM