MOE petition to cancel external exams - UAE.

IB, as of February 4th, has decided that the May 2021 exam will be taken through a dual-route system in which some countries will allow for exams to take place; whereas, others will be assessed based on predicted grades and IAs. According to IB coordinators, the IB has determined that all schools in the UAE must follow the exam route, ignoring all the negative factors that disadvantaged students for the past year. Plus, Covid-19 is still not over where mutated variants are still rising and most students have not been vaccinated yet.
Most classes in the UAE have been online for the majority of the past year and as a result, the poor nature of online learning and lower productivity from staring at a screen all day created an inevitable learning gap. Teachers have been pressured to complete the course in a shorter period of time, adding a new layer of anxiety and stress for most students from trying to catch up with the content. Many students, whether struggling with attention disorders, access to online resources, mental health, or overall motivation, are not properly learning and understanding the information given to us in this 2 year curriculum.