From Personal Journey to Global Impact: Berna Bouwer on Inclusive Education in the UAE

What happens when an educator's personal journey intersects with a mission for global inclusion? Berna Bouwer, the Corporate Head of Inclusion at GEMS Education, shares her compelling journey from South Africa to Dubai, fueled by her passion for special needs education, a journey deeply influenced by her own experiences with ADHD and her son's cerebral palsy diagnosis. Berna's story is more than personal; it's a testament to the transformative power of inclusive education in a region as diverse as the UAE, where schools celebrate a rich tapestry of up to 129 nationalities. 

Join us as we explore the progressive strides the UAE has made in inclusive education, particularly for individuals with special needs. Despite misconceptions and criticisms, the UAE's unique compliance frameworks offer a refreshing contrast to the litigation-heavy approaches found elsewhere. Berna, drawing on her extensive experience, highlights how the UAE's comprehensive regulatory measures and innovative practices align with the nation's vision for an accessible and inclusive education system that champions tolerance and acceptance.

But the journey doesn't stop at progress—there are challenges too. From the high financial burden on parents to the hurdles faced in employment for individuals with disabilities, the road to inclusion is fraught with obstacles. We'll touch on poignant stories that highlight both the triumphs and trials, such as the young woman with Down syndrome navigating communication barriers and a high-functioning student with ASD striving for future opportunities. This episode promises to provide insights into the UAE's leadership in assistive technology while addressing the pressing need for more affordable and effective solutions in inclusive education.

Chapters

• 0:01 Inclusion in Education With GEMS
• 9:05 Progress and Inclusion in Education
• 24:20 Challenges in Disability Inclusion and Employment
• 31:33 Journey Towards Inclusive Education

Transcript

0:01

Hello and welcome to this week's AXSChat. We're delighted to be joined by Berna Bouwer who is the Corporate Head of Inclusion for GEMS Education. Berna, it's great to have you with us. It feels like we've been talking for ages already. maybe a little bit before we started recording. So, fantastic to have you with us, but can you tell us what the Corporate Head of Inclusion does for GEMS and a little bit about GEMS Education? South African in the United Emirates. So, what are you doing there? Thanks, Neil. Thanks for having me, Debra and Antonio. I am the corporate of inclusion and my job is basically to support the heads of inclusion of which I have about 56 in the Middle East in their role as head of inclusion, supporting our students of determination. Part of it is policy and procedure and helping with documentation and compliance. And part of it is training and support of leadership in schools. One of the things that we do see here is that because the education system in Dubai and the Middle East are designed in such a way that they promote inclusion and they do a lot to educate the nation about inclusion, the standard of inclusion is quite high. And my role is to support our heads of Inclusion and our schools in the yearly inspections or by yearly inspections to achieve the ratings that they deserve in terms of how they implement and how they run Inclusion day to day in their schools. So we know Inclusion is a team sport and none of us can do this on our own. So we all kind of need each other. James Education is a global education management company. And at the moment in the Middle East, we have 49 schools two to the the rest in Dubai and then there's some expansion to Saudi Arabia. We have a sister company in the UK that falls under Bellevue with 16 schools in the UK and Europe. And then we also have some other affiliated schools in California and in the Far East as well. Then we have a group of about 100 not-for-profit schools in India that's also supported by GEMS Education and technically on paper we're the largest K-12 education group in the world. So, and for us to and for our audience to know you a little bit better, can you just tell us a little bit about your personal journey to get in there? Sure. So born and raised South African, Pretoria, right in middle of the country. And I was born in the 70s. And during the 70s, there wasn't really anything in terms of special needs. We still have had that segregated model where if you had any needs, you would be in a specific school to support the need. And I always struggled at school. And I couldn't ever understand why that was because there was no way to understand it. And I can, as a Older women can absolutely say that you cannot beat ADHD out of a child. They tried, it didn't work. But when I was 22, I was diagnosed with ADHD and it was actually a university professor who said to me, there's something we have to have a look at it. And my journey with special needs education started there. I've always had a deep love and empathy for students who struggle, children who struggle because you you go to school for a million minutes in your life. David Bartram, the great David Bartram always talks about the million minutes. You go to school for a million minutes in your life and we're in the last million minutes that you not need any help. We all need help sometimes. I then went into education psychology and thought that was my pathway. But once you're a teacher, you're always a teacher. And I then married my high school sweetheart and we had two beautiful children. My youngest was born very prematurely and had a diagnosis of cerebral palsy. Immediately, I was lucky that I was in the field as an education psychologist and could spot the signs. So we started immediately with intervention, kind of like trying to circumvent the outcome that we knew was possible for children with cerebral palsy who don't get those early interventions. In 2009, when my boys were four and three, almost five and three, my husband got the opportunity to move to Dubai with his work. And we ended up in the beautiful sunny city of Dubai and I couldn't find a school for my youngest because everybody wanted my eldest who was quite bright and is quite advanced in his learning but nobody wanted this little boy with a piece of paper that said cerebral palsy. So in Dubai we have a government regulatory authority called the Knowledge and Human Development Authority, the KHDA, and I went there and I said what do I do because they are supposed to go to school from the age of three. and the lovely man at the KJ said to me, but Berna you're a teacher, go teach and they have to take your children. You my journey then with inclusion in Dubai started actually more for my own child than for anything else. I worked at Stepping Stone Center for Autism and we did an inclusion program trying to reintegrate children back into schools. But Dubai wasn't quite ready for that in 2010 and 11. And then in 2011, March, I got the opportunity to work for James Education. you because the way that they think about inclusion, the way that they embrace inclusion is unlike anything I've ever seen in my life. I then had the opportunity to go with James to the UK in 2016 and work on inclusion practices for UK and Europe for James and with the Bellevue Group there as well. January 2024, I was asked to come back to the UAE, which I'm absolutely ecstatic about. And I've had the opportunity to work with 56 amazing heads of inclusion. And the things that they do every day for our children is just brilliant. Just a little bit of information about some of our schools. If you think there's about 200 nationalities in the UAE. And in some of our schools you have the range of 129 nationalities. Where else in the world do you see that? Some of our schools have 79 different languages and that's just the teachers. So it's so rich and beautiful because you get to learn about inclusion in ways that you learn nowhere else in the world because there's so many different curriculums, so many different ways of doing this, but we know that good inclusion is good inclusion. I'm stunned. I had no idea that y'all were doing this. That is stunning to think 200 nationalities, 79 different languages. And I was looking up gems before we started and I've heard of it, but I just had no idea. First of all, I'm just a little. really overwhelmed by being so impressed. So that is so cool. And I love the energy that you're bringing to this too and how proud you are. That says so much. How your employees respond to your brand says so much. So this is very, very exciting. The first thing I would want to ask you is, how is your son doing now? So your son was born with cerebral palsy. How is he doing now? So he's currently at Surrey University. Took him a while to get his driver's license because some of the lasting remaining effects of the cerebral palsy is still in his hands and his muscles don't in his hands. But he took to trampolining and gymnastics when he was little. He did OT for about 11 years. And then he one day just said to me, please, I need to stop doing occupational therapy. I just can't do this anymore. So we look at alternatives and it was gymnastics. And the trampolining has just been amazing for him. So he's currently jumping at a very high. on the English part for Fig at the age of 18 almost 19 and he's absolutely loving it. He's at Surrey University and he's studying accounting and finance. But the wonderful thing is, is they have put in all of the access arrangement and all the support accommodations that he would need to be successful. And it's so beautiful to see how he's flourishing like all his teammates and his classmates, because he has the opportunity to access, which we all know, getting them into the classroom is the first step to full inclusion. And also then to be successful, he's got a tutor who checks in with him weekly and he has the opportunity to say when something doesn't work for him. And we've been really incredibly happy with the support that he's had in the UK because they're still in the UK. That is just amazing. And I know that there is a lot of misunderstanding about the UAE. There's still a lot of misinformation and misunderstanding. And I think that people don't realize how much they have dedicated their societies toward really making sure their society is educated. And I come from a society that's struggling with education as an American. we're just really struggling about what we're gonna do about education in the United States. And so it's, I'm just amazed at just what you've told us already, what you were telling us off air and now on air about the progress. And even something as simple as people of determination. I remember when the UAE came up with that and it came out, there were a lot of people, a lot of Americans, a lot of people from the UK criticizing the terminology. Yeah, and by the way, still doing it. you cannot use that. Well, actually, you really should be able to use whatever works for your society, I believe. And I don't know why anybody else is worried about it. I've seen so much pride and so much progress. coming out of the UAE, all of the different territories. And so I was wondering if you would also just address that a little bit, especially as somebody that's South African, UK, your family's in UK right now before they go to the UAE. But I was just curious what y'all think about some of those comments that come back or that energy. in the world? I have this funny story that when I came to the UAE in 2009 and people asked me, where are you from? And I would say South Africa and they would say, you're white. It's one of those things, if you haven't actually lived it, you know nothing. As the famous Steve from autism says, once you've made one person with autism, you've made one person with autism. But the wonderful thing about the UAE, And having lived it as a teacher, as a head of inclusion, as a corporate head of inclusion, and as a mum, because I walked the journey, is the way that the education system has changed in the last 14 years. It's just been absolutely remarkable because the inclusion agenda has been pushed to the forefront. And, you know, it's one of the only countries that I've ever worked in that I know about that is... regulated with a compliance framework and schools are Dubai you get inspected every single year on that compliance framework so you've got quality of provision as well as the compliance so it's both sides of it now in most countries you have something like that for safeguarding there's a compliance framework for safeguarding because absolutely safeguarding comes above all but very few countries in the world that I know of actually do compliance component to their inclusion. And how it works in the UAE, if you are non-compliant, then you can actually be fined as a school for certain things. And you can also be told that your inspection rating goes down. So your inspection rating for inclusion has to be either the same or higher than your general. Because what happens is, when inclusion doesn't work, we know nothing else works. It's like that leadership component as well. have those two, you're in big trouble. Having said all of that, there's a big rewrite of the policies at the moment and ADIC, our regulatory body in Abu Dhabi, they have done amazing work doing 37 new policies that they've pushed out into schools. One of them is, for instance, in-school services. One of them is the new inclusion framework and then the other one is inclusion in the early years for nurseries. So it's actually checked all the way down. In Charger, for instance, SPEA is the regulatory body there. They have done loads of work on their inspection framework and inclusion framework and moving with the times. So one of the big things that they're looking at is alternative pathways, because that's not really something that we've had in the past. But that is your BTECs, your alternative curriculums, your ASDAN. NIASC actually is brilliant. Our American schools have a real advantage in this because NIASC actually says that as long as you do the hours and the quality provision you can get a high school certificate even when you're on an alternative pathway. And one of the other things that we see is that even the CBSE, the Indian curriculum, has now come out with alternative pathways that are accessible, because that's the first step, accessible, but also gives you a qualification at the end of the day. So they've done a lot of work. There's still work to be done. But I can honestly say even the smaller Emirates like Ras al-Khaimah, they've now got their department of knowledge. They're called RAK-DOC. They have pushed out loads of teacher training and then of course Fijeras is also in the mix there for great great things happening on the Inclusion Fund. But it all fits into the Ministry of Education's big box of inclusion which all then ties in to our Sheikh and President of the UAE's vision for tolerance and acceptance and inclusion. In Dubai for instance and in Abu Dhabi If a child applies to your school, you have to have a really good reason to say no, and it can't be because they have a specific need. Wow, that is so powerful. I knew that there was a lot of progress, but you're teaching me things that I did not know, which is why we have AXSChat. But I know here in the United States, we have compliance framework too, but what we do is we just sue each other when it doesn't work. And I know, and by the way, that hurts everybody and that hurts the school and it doesn't work and... Yes, so what happens is we are not, I do not believe we're meaningfully educating people with disabilities in the states often, sadly. I think it's important to note, and the way I will note, ask the question to Bernhard first about the terms that they use. I think many people end up commenting, even some of my posts when I was there, I posted about the term of people with termination when I was visiting a few sites and talking with people. People should not confuse. or not use the terms as a way to undermine their commitment. Because I see a lot of commitment in terms of inclusion there. So that's... absolutely Antonio. And actually, if you think about it, if you are a child with any difference in learning, let's call it a difference in learning, you have to work so much harder than everybody else to get to the same outcome. When you've got slow processing speed, for example, and you sit in the classroom and the teacher comes in and they say, take out your book, write the date, underline the date and then start the question. By the time you get to take out your book, you have lost the rest of the instruction. Now, if there's no visual to tell you what to do next, you are lost. So what do our children do? They look around or they ask and then they get in trouble for talking. Right, nope. they're at a disadvantage from the moment they step into the class. And then we expect them to be happy about going to school, but for eight hours every day, for a million minutes of their life, we tell them they're not good enough. So you can't actually blame a child at 12 or 15 who says, I don't want to go to school, I don't like school. Because we are not creating an environment and a culture where our children can be successful. And once we get that right, it actually, I believe, spills into everything else. So the term students of determination or people of determination, I think is misunderstood maybe elsewhere. Year, it means those people who have to work so much harder to reach the same outcome. Now, do we want everybody to reach the same outcome? Maybe not, but we want everybody to reach the outcome that is destined for them. Beautiful, beautiful words. Absolutely, we want quality of outcomes and the quality of experience for people. One of the things that I know from speaking with colleagues that have worked in the region is that there's been a lot of investment into developing Arabic language assistive technologies, things like text to speech, speech recognition systems, et cetera, but also for people who are non-verbal, things like symbol dictionaries and so on and so forth. So, are you engaged in any of the work that goes on with organisations like the Madder Centre, for example, in Qatar? Is that something that impacts the work that you do in your inclusion work in schools? Absolutely. So we have very good links with the Qatar Foundation and the Qatar government is actually now rewriting their inclusion framework. We're very happy about that because we can support from our side as well. But there's a brilliant Arabic font for dyslexic students called Makru that was developed in Oman, actually. And it's so easy. I can't read Arabic. I'm not ever going to tell you that I can at the moment. I'm trying to learn. But when I opened the fund the first time, I could feel my eyes relax because there's about 600 different ways of writing each of the letters in Arabic or the symbols in Arabic. So what they've done in a university project in Oman is they actually took all of these and they with AI basically put them over each other. I'm very technology technologically advanced and then looked for touch points and then designed this file. And then we've got widget. love we everybody loves widget, which is a picture dictionary and word usage which we use for our EIL children, but also for our students of determination. We have a huge population of English language learners, as you could just think. And then we also have other AI tools like TextHelp and the AS assistance where they can use communication boards that is technologically based. We also do other things where we check our quality of education. So we work very closely with companies like the IQM, very closely with the Optimus Award people. And we also do a lot of training for our leaders in the country itself, like companies like WeSend and Whole School Education. I will say that one thing, I'm just so impressed with what you're doing. And I love that it's not just in the UAE, that you're supporting other countries that we've talked about as well. So it's very, very exciting. Did you want to say something, Neil? Yeah, I found the button now. That was failing miserably with the mute button. So, yeah, I do like the fact that there is all of this collaboration and the innovation in looking at things like, people think that fonts are nothing special, but fonts have a really important role to play in people's ability to read and to absorb information. I know that one of our favorite returning guests on AXSChat is rather obsessive about fonts, Gareth Ford-Williams, and done a lot of work around fonts. and me too, a lot of the fonts that we see advertisers being created for people with dyslexia are ugly. And I think that it's really important that we get beyond the idea that if you make something accessible, it's always going to be constrained and always going to be ugly, and I think it's possible to make beautiful, inclusive things. So, I'm glad that you're working in the spirit of collaboration to do that. know that Antonio's got a question, think Debra too, so I'll hand back the mic. No, I think as we talk about, we experience some different people around the world here on AXSChat. So if you look to your experience moving between different countries, what are the things that they are getting right that others might be missing? I have to say one of the things they're getting right is the whole idea of tolerance and acceptance. I don't think you have a choice when you live in a country that's so diverse. If you think about it, nine million people and eight of those nine million people are expats. So you have to be collaborative, you have to work together, you have to see the value of each other. That's the first thing that I can say. And the other thing is, because it's regulated, I used to work for an amazing principal who always said, what doesn't get checked doesn't get done. And that's the thing. And I'm not a huge fan of the yearly inspections, but it serves such a great purpose because it keeps people accountable. So that's some of the things they get right. They also get it right when you need the support and you ask for it. Support is available. So that is really brilliant. I can phone the KHDA, my contacts at the KHDA or at ADEC or at DOC or SPIA and say, I need this, or can you help me with that? So there's lots of support available as well, which is really, really brilliant. And then in terms of trying to have pathways and create pathways, know, I love the UDL system because we know what's beneficial for some. is crucial for others and when it benefits the whole class, why would you not teach in that way? And I agree with you, Neil, things doesn't need to be ugly. You just have to look at the ramps that you find nowadays. It's a beautiful, amazing ramp to get into buildings and out of buildings that are really part of the building's aesthetics and education is the same. So I think they get those things right. I also think with the teacher licensing, where every teacher has to do an inclusive to actually pass and get their teacher licensing, I think that is crucial. But there are still things to do. There are still things to do in terms of what comes next, because we get certain parts of the education system beautifully right. But there are still things to do in terms of making sure that our children have a future. One of the things that they did do a few years ago was to change the age where you can sign your parents' visa. from 18 for boys to 25. And if you have a learning difficulty or a difference, you can apply to make that 35. So actually, they've now extended that as well. But what we used to see is we used to see children completing high school or IB or A levels equivalency and then go back to their home countries because there wasn't really anything here. So those are the things they are definitely getting right. I was going to ask a similar question, but Antonio asked it. He said it so beautifully, you made me think of a few things when you did, when you, your last comment, because. First of all, I really applaud for GEMS, for everything you're doing, GEMS education, but certainly the UAE for continuing to show such leadership. we have in the United States, I love the United States. So I'm sorry if sometimes I sound critical, I love my country. But we have supports available, our supports don't always. They don't meet the need of the student often. And we see them almost getting stuck in what they're offering. They're offering us old, old assistive technology. And I remember a young one, this is a few years old, but a young woman with Down syndrome that had communications issues. And they wanted to get her a three foot board to help with her augmented, her communications. And I remember her saying, well, Why don't you just give me an iPad because I'll do my own apps. And the iPad at the time, that iPad was $500 or you could have spent $5,000 on this useless piece. I'm going to carry around the three foot device to communicate with the world. Right. And so we've done some of that as well here in the United States. just, maybe we started. before, so we haven't been as successful with that. And the question I was gonna ask you was, what do you think the world can learn from what you're doing in the UAE, but also as Jim's education, because you're not, as you noted, not just in the UAE, but you're in other countries as well, because. One thing that I am just spending so much of my time on social media saying to my audience and a lot of my audience is Americans, not all of it, but a lot of it is, is that we really, really, really need to look outside our borders because we are seeing progress. And so you are, you know, I'm overwhelmed in a positive way about what y'all have done already. I just... I knew things were happening, but I did not understand how much y'all had already accomplished. just having this conversation with another country this morning about, it's got to be an education. It's got to be an education. But the employers need to be involved as well. And so my comment would be also that I know of a wonderful woman that was born blind in the kingdom of Saudi Arabia. Brilliant, brilliant woman. And she went to I believe she went to the United States, maybe the United Kingdom for her education. She got a beautiful education. She came back and nobody will hire her. And she's so talented and she's educated and nobody will hire her because she's blind. all they see is the blindness. That's all they see. And by the way, that is all over the world. There was a big study just done in the UK that confidentially asked employers, would you hire specific people with disabilities? And what they said confidentially was just downright chilling because no, they would not. They do not want the problems associated with hiring us. They don't. And us annoying ADHD people, which there's at least three of us on here today, I was constantly being told, I know everybody's surprised, one more word, Debra, one more. If anybody says one more, I was always in trouble. And so I had a fun time in school because I love people, but I wasn't a good student according to my teachers. And I thought I didn't like school. Well, I actually love to learn, but I like to learn in a way, yes. easy. School is hard. Yes, yes, right. So I really, really applaud y'all on all of the efforts that you're making. I really, really do. your question, think, yes, there's a lot the world can learn from how things work in the UAE and what we're currently doing. know, just the forefront on assistive technology, there's a lot being invested in terms of money. But inclusion is an expensive sport. It's a team sport, but it's an expensive sport. And one of the things in the UAE is if you are not an Emirati or you're not local, that a lot of that cost goes back onto the parents. right. So that's one of the things, there's no EHCP plans, there's no 504s, there's no monetary involvement from the government because the money that you spend as a parent of a child of determination is all out of pocket. So you can imagine what that looks like for a parent, you pay a 100,000 dirham a year of school fees because all international schools are private schools. Now that's about 20, 22 thousand dollars I think because it's about divided by five. Then you have two hours of OT a week, which would cost you a thousand dirhams a week, maybe more. But before you can get to the OT, you have to pay seven thousand for an assessment with the Ed Psych. Then you have two hours of speech therapy where there's another thousand. So by the end of the month, and then you have a learning support assistant or a one-to-one or a shadow teacher or whatever name you want to call them. I prefer to call them learning support specialist because I do think they are the most important people in the class for our children of determination. So by the end of the day, you are spending 400,000 dirhams on your child's with special needs or your child of determinations schooling. And then that investment is great because when you work in the UAE, there's often companies that support you and things like that. But the problem is then what happens then? I had a conversation with a mom today. She's got a year 12 student. So second last year of school. On the spectrum ASD, very high functioning, passes GCSEs, he only did six, which is, you only need five, but he only did six, many children do eight or nine. I think that would be the equivalent of your grade 10 assessment, I think, in America. And he's now doing his A levels, but he's grade year 12, so he's got another year left. And mum has no idea what he's gonna do after school because there's just nothing. Now, That's one of the things that I think we can definitely learn from the UK and from Europe and from the US and other countries is what pathways are available because there's no vocational training at the moment or very little. Can't say no, there's very little. anything like colleges or support in that area. There's very few opportunities to do apprenticeships. There are very, very few placements. We are lucky at the moment, we've just done a thing with the British Orchard Nursery, where our students of determination can start as early as 14 and do a dual curriculum where they do training and volunteering in Cashe 2 and Cashe 3 childcare. But again, that's not for everyone. So there's still a journey for us on that, but also the consistency of inclusion in our classes. So we go back to quality first teaching, and I know that's everywhere in the world. When you talk to a SENCO or a head of inclusion, the one thing they'll tell you is, is the paperwork's in place. I've told them, but do that you just really do it. So that's just still part of our journey. of you. I applaud the work that you're doing on this journey. We've run out of time, I'm not surprised, plenty to talk about. So, I need to thank our friends and sponsors, Amazon and MyClearText for keeping us on air, keeping us captioned, and really look forward to this conversation continuing on social media. Thank you, Bena, it's been a pleasure. so much for having me. It's been amazing.