All 255 public schools in the emirate of Abu Dhabi will be monitored by closed circuit television (CCTV) cameras by summer 2017, a senior education official has said.

The cameras will monitor commonly used areas like main entrances, school pick-up and drop-off points, corridors, staircases, playgrounds and chemical laboratories, among others. “The camera surveillance is expected to encourage good behaviour and discipline, and the recordings could also be used to resolve any issues that arise. We have already set up the system in 150 public schools,” Yousuf Al Riyami, a senior official at the Abu Dhabi Education Council (Adec), told Gulf News.

“The school principal has access to all live feeds, and the recordings will be stored for a minimum of three months,” he added.

The initiative to install CCTV cameras marks the first time that all public schools in Abu Dhabi will be monitored in this manner. Private schools have been mandated by the Adec to install and maintain CCTV camera systems since late 2013.

Any resulting improvement in student behaviour will be welcomed by parents, who have long been concerned about the level of discipline at these schools due to allegations of corporal punishment and purported tobacco use among students.

In addition to installing the cameras, Adec is also working to roll out a collaborative digital platform that can be used by all public school teachers and students.

“What this means is that every schoolchild from Grade 1 onwards will be assigned an email account for their use. This is part of the Maktabi initiative, which also allows students and teachers to share documents and work online,” Al Riyami said.

Maktabi was first introduced two years ago, and was recently piloted at 10 facilities.

“In today’s world, digital access is the norm, and we are trying to encourage proper use of online resources. In fact, we are already learning the feasibility of e-learning programmes at two public schools, based on which our curriculum experts can decide how widely e-learning can be used,” the official said.

Maktabi also provides a terabyte (10,000 gigabytes) of storage space to all 13,000 public school faculty members and more than 120,000 student users.

Mobile application

“We are working to ensure that technology makes things easier for our students, parents and teachers. In that regard, our smartphone application is expected to facilitate 80 per cent of student certificate attestations by the end of 2017,” Al Riyami said.

About 35,000 certificates pertaining to school transfers, grades and continuity of education are attested by the Adec every six months.

“The process usually necessitates a trip by the parents, but things become easier through the application. After registering for the app using their Emirates ID, parents simply have to apply for the certificate, pay the associated fees and specify the address to which they want the attested certificate to be delivered,” the official explained.

The application was launched last month and has seen about 12,000 downloads till date. It offers about 50 services for parents, and about 12 for students, including access to their grades, class timetables and transportation schedules.