A meeting gathering the interior and education ministries in the UAE

A meeting gathering the interior and education ministries in the UAE, has recently raised different criticism on social networking sites, as activists debated the strange relationship between the security establishment and the civilian institutions.

According to the report published by the official news agency, the two ministries had discussed "ways to strengthen cooperation and coordination, and to discuss issues of common interest between the two sides."

Given the history of the relationship between security institutions and civil institutions, the talk about strengthening cooperation between both of them confirms that this coordination goes beyond any educational goals or awareness campaigns to bring up civil and educational issues from a security and a police-state perspective, which has somehow worried activists and jurists.

Activists pointed out that the private education curricula Platform for National Education and Islamic Education, offers security-related culture, along with the fact that armed forces has designed programs and military training courses for students of tenth and eleventh grade.

There is concern of what Deputy Dubai Police Chief Dahi Khalfan said when he suggested to appoint a security officer in every school in the state, without specifying the objectives of this proposal, which observers considered as tightening the security grip on schools, students, teachers.