The United Arab Emirates this week announced a significant change to its working practices across the country by moving the working week to align with much of the rest of the world, shifting from a Friday to Saturday weekend to Saturday to Sunday.
The driving motivation for this appears to be a desire to remain an attractive destination for global business and closer coordination with business markets across the world.
However, the notable move was that the country also said it would shift to an official 4.5 day working week, giving private and public sectors the opportunity to finish work for the weekend at midday on Fridays.
For schools across the country, this announcement, while rumoured for some time, did come as a surprise in its speed of introduction and it means that from January 2022 pupils will be in school from Monday through to lunchtime on Fridays.
Proper time off
This may sound like a loss of learning time - and pupils will no doubt relish an extended weekend - but for educators who identify the importance of balancing academic rigour with wellbeing and extracurricular opportunities, the move seems to be a positive one in achieving this balance and a welcome insight that policymakers clearly recognised this too.
For teachers, the shift could have a really positive impact on their wellbeing too by extending their downtime and ensuring there is time to switch off from “school mode” for longer.
Certainly, in fast-paced international school environments, it can often feel like the gap between working weeks is never quite enough to fully recharge.
The pressure is unrelenting, so those extra hours to decompress may make a huge difference for teachers in the UAE, especially towards the end of a long term.
Planning quickly
Logistically then, how might it work?
What is most likely is that the four longer days will focus on the academic side and then we’ll see more extracurricular provision moved into the weekend - particularly the new Friday afternoon portion of the weekend.
Weekends were always used for extracurricular activities before but with the new time created on Friday, it will mean more of Saturday and Sunday are reserved for “downtime” for both pupils, parents and teachers, which is a win-win for everyone.
Of course, organising this is not an easy job as timetables have to be reconfigured for just a few weeks’ time to ensure there is adequate allowance for subject teaching.
This may cause a few headaches for school leaders but, as the last 20 months have shown, schools are adaptable and resilient workplaces and incorporating new ways of working at short notice can be achieved.
Within an hour of the news breaking, our school, like many across the Emirates, went into full planning mode.
Exam schedules for mocks were adapted, discussions within my department focused on any revisions required to extracurricular provision and generally a sense of proactivity permeated throughout.
By the time we finished for our winter break, things were already taking shape.
A change worth watching
Whilst there are still some unknowns and absolutely unexpected speed bumps to come, everyone involved felt it was a challenge worth undertaking.
And of course, there was plenty of discussion about what we might do with this newfound time off - interest in golf tee-off times on Friday afternoon certainly increased.
Overall, while there will be some short-term hiccups as we transition to this new way of working, I would wager it will be a change that only serves to enhance teaching in the country.
Certainly, many teachers and policymakers - and pupils even - around the world will be watching on with a mix of envy and interest as to how this works with an eye on how their own countries leaders could, hopefully, enact a similar plan.
Only time will tell.
Philip Mathe is director of co-curricular provision at Brighton College Al Ain in the United Arab Emirates
