DOHA: The next summer holidays for private and Independent schools in Qatar will be from June 26 to September 9, the Supreme Education Council (SEC) has said.
The SEC has asked all schools to schedule their academic calendar accordingly in line with an earlier decision to unify school vacations in the country.
The mid-term holidays will begin on February 10 and last until February 21, Al Sharq reported yesterday.
More than 200,000 students from 358 schools will resume classes today after the ten-day Eid Al Adha holidays. These include 177 Independent schools and 118 private schools and kindergartens.
The early announcement of the holidays will help private schools to plan their vacation well in advance in compliance with the SEC guidelines. Most private schools had been following more or less similar schedule for summer holidays last year. However, the mid-term holidays differed between different schools, with most Asian community schools having their winter holidays in December.
Sources from schools following a different academic calendar from that of the Independent schools and the international schools say that they are likely to be exempted from the rule, at least in the case of the winter holidays.
Independent schools have a two-week mid-term holidays in February, while several Asian community school have month-long winter holidays in December.
The early announcement of the summer holiday this year indicate that all the private and community schools will be asked to unify their summer holidays, in line with the SEC guidelines.
The SEC said that the unification of holidays was in the interest of the parents, teachers and administrative staff of the schools. The decision was made in response to repeated complaints from parents about the difficulties they faced due to variations in the school holidays.
Meanwhile, the SEC has decided to reduce the number of internal examinations in Independent schools from three to two, as part of a new academic policy, the daily said.
The first internal examination will start on December 23 while the second is scheduled to begin on April 14, next year. The final examinations will be held beginning May 22.
All Independent schools have been asked to teach a foreign language as an optional subject. The SEC has sought support from embassies of different countries in this respect, in training teachers and formulating the curricula.
The Peninsula
