More Than 200 Special Education Practitioners and Teachers Saved Nearly 4 Hours per Student Monthly in the 2020/21 Academic Year After Implementing the "Khutta" Platform

At the beginning of the current 2020/21 academic year, in collaboration with Ibtikar Educational Solutions and the Ministry of Community Development in the United Arab Emirates, we announced the commencement of the implementation of the "Khutta" platform as part of the programs and plans provided by the Ministry to support people of determination and their families during the "COVID-19" pandemic. The platform aims to raise the efficiency and effectiveness of education and rehabilitation services for people of determination that are supervised and supported by the Ministry.

Despite the rapid increase in the number of beneficiaries of the Khutta platform's services, as well as the positive feedback from specialists and families, the Department of People of Determination, in collaboration with the Research and Studies Section at the Ministry, decided to form a team of specialists and experts to conduct a study evaluating the effectiveness of the Khutta platform project for people of determination.

The study team reviewed previous literature and developed a tool to measure the impact of implementing the Khutta platform project for people of determination. The tool, designed for practitioners including teachers, support service specialists, and activity specialists, comprised three main sections: preliminary information, attitudes toward the core services of the Khutta platform, and satisfaction with services and technical support. In addition, the study team developed an interview guide for a number of families. This guide included several questions regarding the families' experiences in benefiting from the services provided by the Ministry and the extent to which the Khutta platform helped facilitate access to those services.(The results of the family interviews will be analyzed in the detailed appendix to the study, which will be published later).

More than 200 special education teachers and support service specialists from various centers for people of determination supervised by the Ministry of Community Development participated in the study. The preliminary results of the study showed—although only a few months had passed since the implementation of the Khutta platform—that a large percentage (up to 80%) of participants found the Khutta platform better compared to previous traditional methods in terms of designing individualized educational and rehabilitation programs, collecting data, and tracking progress, as well as data analysis and decision support. The results also indicated that the Khutta platform saved time for the vast majority of practitioners. Specifically, around 64% saved nearly 4 hours per student each month, representing an estimated return on investment of up to 60% over five years according to the latest literature in this field.

This study is a first and important step toward providing systematic information about the Khutta platform for people of determination. Accordingly, the Ministry is working to continue the Khutta platform project and link it to the Ministry's other systems, in addition to activating the platform across a larger segment of centers for people of determination licensed by the Ministry. It is worth noting here that the Ministry of Community Development intends to participate with the Khutta platform project study in the Government Conference to be held later this year.

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Originally published in Arabic. This English version was produced with AI-assisted translation; the Arabic original remains the reference.