Education and its stratergies

lt is a necessity for the educational system in any country to take the responsibility to lead society towards the future along with its sustained development process.
The role of the education system is vital in any country, with strategies consistently developed to upgrade and improve the system for it to work.
The system needs continuous improvement to meet the current requirements and needs because of the changes that occur with the continuos evolution of education.
In many school around the world there are regular projects to sustain the objectives of updating education systems. Professional learning communities (PLC) is a temporary process that contributes effectively in the development of an educational system to achieve more success, raise student outcomes and help sustain knowledge (Viscio et al., 2008). The purpose of the professional development plan, as noted in the website of Missouri: department of elementary school and secondary education, is to “identify specific learning goals and provide a structure for professional growth” (n.d., p. 128). This paper will offer a design for a professional development plan for a school system (based in the GCC) and will include a timeline; resources needed and suggest the staff responsible for the application of the plan. This plan will focus on the structures section in the dimension of supportive conditions of the professional learning communities model (Hipp, 2003), as described below.
Hargreaves (2007, p. 182) offered an explanation for the process of the professional learning communities, he stated,
The professional learning communities created structures, cultures and leadership that promoted rich conversations and stimulating, challenging, rewarding professional relationships among teachers, throughout the work and life of the school, about how best to improve the learning, lives and achievement of students.
Similarly Viscio et al. (2008, p. 88) assented with Hargreaves (2007) in the effectiveness of PLC, he articulated, “a learning community model can have positive impact on both teachers and students”.
Facilities and technology are key tools of the PLC process under the dimension of structure supportive conditions (Hipp, 2003). This professional development plan focused on these two key tools in order to enhance the student outcomes through them. Subsequently, the main strategic goal is to create a stimulating educational environment that is compatible with the student’s learning needs. UNICEF (2000, p. 7) emphasized the importance of school building as follow:
Physical learning environment or the places in which formal learning occurs, range from relatively modern and well-equipped building to open-air gathering places. The quality of school facilities seems to have an indirect effect on learning, an effect that is hard to measure. There are several sub-goals, projects, programs and activities that could be incorporated in order to achieve this main goal. These sub-goals include, infrastructure development and educational buildings (for example an English club project), technical system development (e.g. the smart learning project) and promotion of school activities for the development of student skills (e.g. the project of promoting public health at the school).
In this section my focus is on the first sub goal, which is infrastructure development including educational buildings. This development has to be of a significantly high quality that commensurate with the technological advances to provide a more leading edge type of learning environment for students. UNICEF (2000) suggested that it is vital to have good quality of school facilities, it is reported,
The quality of school building may be related to other school quality issues, such as the presence of adequate instructional materials and textbooks, working conditions for students and teachers to undertake certain instructional approaches. (p. 7)
Consequently, the best example for working conditions for students and teachers to undertake certain instructional approaches could be the project of the English Club.
The English club could be arranged in a large room that would include numerous sections such as the library, computer lab and a location that could be of assistance to the teacher to read stories for students.
The requirement of this location would need to provide a fertile environment for students, as well as, the ease of dealing with the library and the computer systems in order to encourage students to learn the language and achieve a greatest amount of interest to them.
In the GCC Students show a very low performance in English and consequently a large amount of attention is required to be rendered by the educational Ministry to this problem. Al Noursi (2013) related this problem to the attitude of students towards English: “Poor performance in English in the GCC schools have [sic] been reported in multiple occasions. A primary cause for the UAE students’ attainment in English is believed to be related to the learners’ negative attitudes towards learning English as a foreign language”. (p. 22)
I am of the belief that if we provide the English club with the right amount of support we may have found a way that can assist in eliminating the students’ attitudes problem towards English language, or at least minimize it. Stoll et al. (2006, p. 235) explained the importance of creating a learning culture by stating that, “school culture influences readiness for change”. There are six activities that would help in achieving such a sub goal. The first strategy involves allocating a room in the school to be the headquarters for the club and coordinating it to look different from regular classes. The size of this room is to be large enough to include the sections that are necessary for the club as mentioned earlier. The Ministry of Education would contribute the fiscal resources and materials that would be essential for this step. The contribution of the Ministry would be the construction of a new building for the club and around six months would essentially be the required time for construction(from June 2013 to December 2013), failing which, the use of one of the vacant rooms in the school would be an alternative.
The second strategy involves providing the club with library enriched with material from the English language curriculum, and also providing books, stories, films, educational programs, computers T.V. and DVD devices that are commensurate with the different ages of the students at elementary school level. Holden (as cited in Court, 2011, p. xviii) explained the importance of the library as follows:
Libraries can, and in many places do, provide platforms for development, or staging posts, to assist young people on their journey. Book start, library cards and book packs for the newborn, links to sure start, homework clubs, teenage reading groups, and help with becoming proficient in IT (information technology) are just some of the examples of the ways in which libraries can develop broad reading skills.
To progress with this the English teacher would be required to work alongside the librarian in order to put the books and stories on the shelves, as well as format the necessary touches in order to make the club look appealing and fun for students. The Ministry would provide the books, equipment and programs. The time taken would be the same as for the first step because this step would occur at the same time as the first step.