UAE Changes to the Weekend and Working Week
UAE Changes to the Weekend and Working Week
We are writing to let you know that the University of Birmingham Dubai is going to be adopting the recently announced UAE Federal Government Working Week and Weekend.
We will be implementing this change from 1st January 2022.
Rationale
The change for the UAE Federal Government was followed by announcements from the governments of each Emirate including Dubai Government, and importantly KHDA’s announcement that private schools in Dubai would move to the new weekend too from 1st January 2022. This last change means a move to the new structure of the week for all our PGCE students, working parents, our student’s younger siblings, education contractors and many others.
Since the 7th December 2021, there have also been a considerable number of announcements and confirmations by a large number of private sector organisations that they too intend to adopt the change. Our recent discussions suggest that almost 90% of the private sector in Dubai are intending to adopt the change too.
Without making this change now, we risk being out of step with you as our student base, particularly those of you who are studying with us at postgraduate level and are working alongside study. We would also impact on the needs of many of our staff and our relationships with a range of organisations across the city providing amongst other things, internships and other employability opportunities.
We also expect there to be some direct benefits. For example, the Dubai campus will be better aligned with the Edgbaston campus in study, teaching and examination schedules (noting that Edgbaston of course continue to work Friday afternoons) and our Friday afternoon will be free of timetabled activity, for the pursuit of religious observance and/or for activities with student led groups, clubs and societies.
Moving on this quickly means that we do not become out of step with the pace of change across the UAE and the benefits it can deliver. It means that we commence life in our new campus in this new pattern. It prevents having to make the change part way through a semester, or wait until as late as June 2022 to make the change.
What does this mean?
This means that from 1st January 2022 UoBD will operate with the following structure to the standard working week:
Weekdays
Monday Full day
Tuesday Full day
Wednesday Full day
Thursday Full day
Friday Half day (morning)
Weekend
Friday Half day (afternoon)
Saturday Full day
Sunday Full day
Please note that this new scheduling and timetable will be fixed for a trial period for the upcoming term only. The University will monitor and assess the impact of this new timetable during the upcoming semester, together with how the market practice develops over the next few months, when planning the timetable for the following academic year.
7-day campus
The campus will continue to be a 7-day per week campus and have teaching and other appropriate activity scheduled across all 7 days as necessary. This is particularly during term time with the exception of Friday after 12:30pm. However, the building and essential facilities will remain open for use.
Friday Afternoons
Campus will remain open and available for staff and students during Friday afternoon and this will be designated as a free afternoon in the timetable for religious observance of prayer and for student activities, clubs and societies. This is something that we would have been looking to create as we opened up further teaching space for timetabling in the new campus and so this represents an opportunity to bring that forward. Teaching will be scheduled for Friday morning only.
Teaching and Examination Timetable
The provisional timetable produced recently will need to be reviewed and amended and adapted for the teaching of the new Foundation Year students from 10th January 2022, the January examination schedule will also be reviewed and amended if necessary and republished if required. A revised timetable will be issued prior to the start of Semester 2.
Other Impact
There is also a range of other planned activity that will see some need for change and so we will review the academic calendar to make sure that we are aware of all of the key issues. However, it would be good to hear back from you if you have any particular areas of feedback you would like to give.
Student & Programme Administration Desk operating hours (Term time)