The Communication Regulatory Authority (CRA) in coordination with Ministry of Education and Higher Education (MEHE) is inviting private schools across the country to adopt “.sch.qa”. The domain name will give them a unique Qatari identification and will help to enhance their online presence and will provide a clear differentiation for websites of schools from “.edu.qa” being used by institutions offering higher education.
This is the second phase of CRA’s initiative to increase Qatari presence on the Internet; phase one saw the registration of all 177 government schools’ websites with “.sch.qa” domain name. MEHE, which manages all governmental schools’ domains and websites, will automatically register all new school websites under “.sch.qa”.
Phase two of the initiative aims to have all private schools in the country registered with the “.sch.qa” domain name. Any school that needs to register a website under “.sch.qa” or would like to transition to the “.sch.qa” domain name from their existing website, should get in touch with CRA’s Qatar Domains Registry (QDR) Support Team by sending an email to support@domains.qa.
“Country-specific domain names are a valuable national commodity that help businesses and organizations stand out. Specifically “.sch.qa” will help schools better connect to their audience by using a domain that reflects their uniquely Qatari presence,” said Abdulla Jassmi, Technical Affairs Department Manager, CRA.
“The ever changing nature of the digital age requires that we make great efforts in the field of information technology to develop educational processes. This will allow more space for innovation and creativity which in its turn will improve the quality of education and the ability to achieve faster as well as save time, money and effort,” said Mohammed Malfi Al-Hajri, Shared Services Department Head, the Ministry of Education and Higher Education.
Al-Hajri envisions that all 284 private schools’ websites in Qatar shall be registered under “.sch.qa" domain before the end of 2018. Al-Hajri also stressed that it’s necessary that private schools register their websites under ".sch.qa" domain to keep pace with technological developments, increase the Qatari presence on the Internet and to better communicate with concerned parties and stakeholders in the educational field.
Qatar is among the first countries in the world to be able to offer domain names in Arabic “قطر.” representing Qatar’s Arabic language online identity. CRA manages all the Qatar-specific domains and has registered around 23,000 Qatari domains so far.