In the UAE, the phrase you will hear in every school policy, inspection report and government document is People of Determination, or Students of Determination in an education setting. If you have trained elsewhere you may know the same children as pupils with special educational needs and disabilities, or SEND. The words are different on purpose, and understanding why helps you speak the language your school, your inspectors and your families use.
Where the term comes from
The UAE adopted People of Determination as its official term to recognise the achievements of people with disabilities and to move the public conversation away from deficit language. KHDA's 2017 Dubai Inclusive Education Policy Framework opens by explaining the choice: it reflects strength of character, perseverance and courage, and it sits inside a wider national ambition for an inclusive society. The same framework uses the technical phrase students who experience special educational needs and disabilities when it needs precision, so the two vocabularies live side by side.
The law behind it
The foundation is Federal Law No. 29 of 2006 on the rights of people with special needs, which the UAE government describes as the first law protecting this group's rights. It defines a person with special needs as someone with a temporary or permanent, full or partial limitation in physical, sensory, mental, communicational, educational or psychological abilities that limits ordinary activity. Later policy built on it: a National Policy for Empowering People of Determination with education as one of its pillars, Ministerial Resolution No. 647 of 2020 directing government schools to provide inclusive education, and the emirate-level frameworks from KHDA in Dubai and ADEK in Abu Dhabi.
The categories the UAE recognises
The UAE government's own guidance lists the areas of need that education provision is organised around: visual impairment, hearing impairment, autism, mental impairment, physical disabilities, learning difficulties, and speech and language disorders. Individual regulators publish more detailed classifications for their own processes. For a classroom teacher the categories matter less than the response: the UAE frameworks are built around what a student needs in order to learn, not around the label alone.
What it means for a teacher
Three things follow from the term and the law behind it.
- Inclusion is the default. Both KHDA and ADEK expect mainstream schools to educate students of determination alongside their peers, with support that increases in intensity as need increases. Separate provision is the exception, not the starting point.
- Identification does not wait for a diagnosis. The Dubai framework asks schools to assess educational need on entry and to act on what they find. Abu Dhabi's policy reaches students with additional learning needs whether or not they have a report. A teacher who notices a child struggling is expected to respond, record and refer, not to wait.
- The record is part of the provision. Because the frameworks are inspected, what a school does for a child has to be visible: who identified the need, what was put in place, what changed, and when the family was involved.
What it means for a parent
If you are a parent, the term tells you that your child has rights in the system, not favours. A school cannot refuse your child a place only because of a need, it must assess and plan for that need, and it must tell you what it is doing. You are entitled to ask for the plan, to see what is being tracked and to be part of the review. You will also find that the good schools want exactly that conversation, because a parent who knows what is being tried at school can do the same at home.
A note on language in the classroom
Use the term the family and the school use. Most UAE schools use students of determination in formal documents and the child's name everywhere else. Avoid describing a child by their category in front of them or their peers. The point of the UAE's choice of words is dignity; the best way to honour it is to talk about what the child is working on, not what they have.
Sources
- UAE Government — Education for people of determination
- KHDA — Dubai Inclusive Education Policy Framework (2017)
- ADEK — Education for People of Determination
This page is an explainer, not legal advice. Definitions and procedures change; the regulators' current documents take precedence.