The Abu Dhabi Executive Council has approved a raft of projects including pay rises for teachers, 1,000 new villas and two medical centres worth a total of Dh925 million.
At its meeting on Thursday, the council also approved funding to build, run and maintain a major liquid natural gas plant off Fujairah, and to provide children without parental care with a special Thiqa health-insurance card.
The guarantee of better salaries and competitive bonuses will hopefully encourage Emiratis to take up teaching, and is part of an overhaul of school payroll structures.
The changes cover salaries and wages of all workers in schools, including teachers, principals, assistants and members of administration staff.
Council chairman Sheikh Mohammed bin Zayed, also Crown Prince of Abu Dhabi and Deputy Supreme Commander of the Armed Forces, underlined the importance of the education sector to the meeting.
Sheikh Mohammed called education “the cornerstone for all the strategic and development plans, due to its great effect on the present and the future”, the state news agency Wam reported.
The new payroll structure takes into account work circumstances and levels of progress, and is meant to ensure a better work environment that improves the quality of teachers and attracts and retains the best educators.
The Executive Council also endorsed the New School Model for public schools, a reorganisation that is being introduced in phases. It will help to create jobs and update the roles assigned to some basic jobs.
The 1,000 villas approved for Emiratis are to be built at the Al Falah housing project, bringing the number of units there to 5,857. The total project will include 28 mosques, and 16 private and state schools.
Awards for tenders to set up the Dh331.7m Disease Prevention and Screening Centre and a Dh596m Abu Dhabi Medical Rehabilitation Centre were also approved.
The rehabilitation service will work in collaboration with other health centres to provide physiotherapy, treatment for conditions including cerebral palsy and injuries from road accidents.
The programme to provide orphans with Thiqa cards will be managed by the Zayed Higher Foundation for Humanitarian Care and Special Needs.
“The decision was taken in support of this group of children, and to provide them with full medical insurance as their harsh circumstances deprived them from living a normal family life,” Wam reported.
A new liquid natural gas import plant off Fujairah will have a capacity of 1.2 billion cubic metres a day and will aim to “meet a growing demand for electricity, increase natural gas supplies to the UAE and provide a new source of energy compatible with environmental standards”.
newsdesk@thenational.ae
