Today is Arabic Language Day, but the language’s declining popularity among youth in the UAE is causing concern.
Some mothers even say that English language cartoons and online video games have the same effect on their children’s Arabic skills as gorging on fast food has on their physical health.
At least one teacher hopes the return of Arabic exams at primary schools will begin to address the declining levels of proficiency among pupils.
The Government is also rolling out the Bil Arabi initiative to address the issue. It will feature a year-long series of events and activities in the UAE and abroad, encouraging the use of Arabic by pupils and the general public.
For the past few years, public primary schools relied on quizzes and midterm tests instead of official exams to grade pupils, said Rabaa Khalil, an Arabic teacher at Yas School.
This meant they all passed, even those who did not know how to read or write.
“But this year the exams have been brought back, and that will motivate the parents to make their children study so they can pass,” Mrs Khalil said.
“The return of exams will raise pupils’ grades in Arabic. Pupils are also neglecting Arabic because the staff at the school are all non-Arabic speakers.
“I am an Arabic teacher and I am forced to learn English so I can communicate with the principal.”
With English tending to rule the roost at schools, it is no wonder children use it as their primary language, Mrs Khalil said.
“Only 5 per cent know how to write [in Arabic].
“When I used to teach high school, some 12th graders barely knew how to spell, despite all the technologies and smart boards. We need solutions for this issue,” she said.
Arabic language competitions, such as those previously held by the Abu Dhabi Educational Council, would have a greater effect than the contests the schools currently run, she said. According to Fatena Abullateef Al Dajani, an Arabic language supervisor at Horizon Private School, pupils have become obsessed with online and video games, which are all in English.
“When we started to notice this, about three years ago, we launched a number of projects to bring back the love of Arabic,” she said.
The projects include: a 10-minute Arabic reading session every morning; sending a story book home with pupils every week and testing their comprehension; and enrolling them in reading challenges across the UAE.
“Also, Quran memorisation contests help a lot, because memorising the Quran enriches their Arabic language massively. We even involve the parents and grandparents, we invite them to the school library to read with their children,” she said.
Rawan Fawaz, a 27-year-old mother from Palestine, said she was alarmed by her seven-year-old’s lack of Arabic skills.
“His older brother – who is nine – is much better because he used to watch cartoons dubbed into classical Arabic, so when he started talking he spoke proper Arabic.
“Now he can understand the language much easier than his brother.
“I don’t know what happened in the past five years. It seems like everything changed in schools.
“The children don’t understand anything any more,” the mother of three said. “All the films, animation and video games that they are engaged in are in English, that is why they have forgotten about Arabic. And the types of children’s programmes popular nowadays are not deep humanitarian stories like the ones we used to watch, they are all silly and increase the child’s level of stupidity.”
She will be enrolling her sons in a Quran school during the winter break to improve their Arabic skills, she said.
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New initiative will promote Arabic among UAE’s youth
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At a glance
Global events: Much of the UK’s economic woes were blamed on “increased global uncertainty”, which can be interpreted as the economic impact of the Ukraine war and the uncertainty over Donald Trump’s tariffs.
Growth forecasts: Cut for 2025 from 2 per cent to 1 per cent. The OBR watchdog also estimated inflation will average 3.2 per cent this year
Welfare: Universal credit health element cut by 50 per cent and frozen for new claimants, building on cuts to the disability and incapacity bill set out earlier this month
Spending cuts: Overall day-to day-spending across government cut by £6.1bn in 2029-30
Tax evasion: Steps to crack down on tax evasion to raise “£6.5bn per year” for the public purse
Defence: New high-tech weaponry, upgrading HM Naval Base in Portsmouth
Housing: Housebuilding to reach its highest in 40 years, with planning reforms helping generate an extra £3.4bn for public finances
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Earth under attack: Cosmic impacts throughout history
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- 66 million years ago: 10km-wide asteroid crashes into the Gulf of Mexico, wiping out over 70 per cent of living species – including the dinosaurs.
- 50,000 years ago: 50m-wide iron meteor crashes in Arizona with the violence of 10 megatonne hydrogen bomb, creating the famous 1.2km-wide Barringer Crater
- 1490: Meteor storm over Shansi Province, north-east China when large stones “fell like rain”, reportedly leading to thousands of deaths.
- 1908: 100-metre meteor from the Taurid Complex explodes near the Tunguska river in Siberia with the force of 1,000 Hiroshima-type bombs, devastating 2,000 square kilometres of forest.
- 1998: Comet Shoemaker-Levy 9 breaks apart and crashes into Jupiter in series of impacts that would have annihilated life on Earth.
-2013: 10,000-tonne meteor burns up over the southern Urals region of Russia, releasing a pressure blast and flash that left over 1600 people injured.
Mercer, the investment consulting arm of US services company Marsh & McLennan, expects its wealth division to at least double its assets under management (AUM) in the Middle East as wealth in the region continues to grow despite economic headwinds, a company official said.
Mercer Wealth, which globally has $160 billion in AUM, plans to boost its AUM in the region to $2-$3bn in the next 2-3 years from the present $1bn, said Yasir AbuShaban, a Dubai-based principal with Mercer Wealth.
“Within the next two to three years, we are looking at reaching $2 to $3 billion as a conservative estimate and we do see an opportunity to do so,” said Mr AbuShaban.
Mercer does not directly make investments, but allocates clients’ money they have discretion to, to professional asset managers. They also provide advice to clients.
“We have buying power. We can negotiate on their (client’s) behalf with asset managers to provide them lower fees than they otherwise would have to get on their own,” he added.
Mercer Wealth’s clients include sovereign wealth funds, family offices, and insurance companies among others.
From its office in Dubai, Mercer also looks after Africa, India and Turkey, where they also see opportunity for growth.
Wealth creation in Middle East and Africa (MEA) grew 8.5 per cent to $8.1 trillion last year from $7.5tn in 2015, higher than last year’s global average of 6 per cent and the second-highest growth in a region after Asia-Pacific which grew 9.9 per cent, according to consultancy Boston Consulting Group (BCG). In the region, where wealth grew just 1.9 per cent in 2015 compared with 2014, a pickup in oil prices has helped in wealth generation.
BCG is forecasting MEA wealth will rise to $12tn by 2021, growing at an annual average of 8 per cent.
Drivers of wealth generation in the region will be split evenly between new wealth creation and growth of performance of existing assets, according to BCG.
Another general trend in the region is clients’ looking for a comprehensive approach to investing, according to Mr AbuShaban.
“Institutional investors or some of the families are seeing a slowdown in the available capital they have to invest and in that sense they are looking at optimizing the way they manage their portfolios and making sure they are not investing haphazardly and different parts of their investment are working together,” said Mr AbuShaban.
Some clients also have a higher appetite for risk, given the low interest-rate environment that does not provide enough yield for some institutional investors. These clients are keen to invest in illiquid assets, such as private equity and infrastructure.
“What we have seen is a desire for higher returns in what has been a low-return environment specifically in various fixed income or bonds,” he said.
“In this environment, we have seen a de facto increase in the risk that clients are taking in things like illiquid investments, private equity investments, infrastructure and private debt, those kind of investments were higher illiquidity results in incrementally higher returns.”
The Abu Dhabi Investment Authority, one of the largest sovereign wealth funds, said in its 2016 report that has gradually increased its exposure in direct private equity and private credit transactions, mainly in Asian markets and especially in China and India. The authority’s private equity department focused on structured equities owing to “their defensive characteristics.”
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Name: Peter Dicce
Title: Assistant dean of students and director of athletics
Favourite sport: soccer
Favourite team: Bayern Munich
Favourite player: Franz Beckenbauer
Favourite activity in Abu Dhabi: scuba diving in the Northern Emirates
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Starring: Jack Black, Jennifer Coolidge, Jason Momoa
Rating: 3/5
