As 39 girls from all walks of life stood on a stage earlier this month, they highlighted a dramatic trend taking hold both in the UAE and around the world. The young women, between 8 and 18, were recognised by the Sheikha Fatima Bint Mubarak awards for their efforts to contribute not only to their own schools but to the wider global community. They exemplified the impressive gains girls are making in school, in the workplace and in society.
Perhaps most fitting was that the awards were given just as the Knowledge and Human Development Authority released the results of Dubai's performance in the global PISA assessment. The tests underscored the widening gap between girls and boys in most subjects.
The PISA results are widely seen as a measure of how a nation is likely to fare in the knowledge economy of the future. As a result, they have huge political significance and policy implications. Dubai, which was the only emirate in the UAE to take part in the test, showed marked improvement. But the results also highlighted that much more still needs to be done to boost children's readiness for work.
Outcomes for IB and UK curriculum schools are commensurate with the top countries in the PISA assessments. It's a significant vote of confidence in the level of schooling in the UAE, and it highlights why many expatriates identify the quality of schooling as a major draw to living here.
One area that PISA examines particularly closely is the performance of girls versus boys. Overall, the skill levels of 15-year-old males and females in Dubai were found to be in line with the global patterns in mathematics. But maths was the sole test in which boys outperformed girls.
The other results present stark social and educational challenges but they also offer a silver lining. For example, in reading, students in Dubai displayed results that were again consistent with global trends but the magnitude of the gender differential was much larger than in the rest of the world. Female students were found to achieve 48 points higher than boys compared to the average 39 point differential. In science, the global gender differentials was insignificant – only 1 point – yet in Dubai girls outperformed their male counterparts by 14 points. Problem-solving differentials repeated the same pattern; girls outstripped boys, again by a wider gap versus the rest of the world.
The tests also highlight the weakness in other curricula. In privately-run Ministry of Education curriculum schools, for example, almost a quarter are at level 1, while the proportion is as high as 36 per cent for students in Dubai's public schools and 69 per cent for those in Pakistani schools. Those results point to a failure of the system to deliver equality of opportunity that risks a long tail of underachievement. As we move headlong into the knowledge economy, a generation of young people could be at risk of disengagement and disaffection. Students who attain this very low level will either fail to complete secondary education or they will leave school with insufficient skills for work or college.
There is a simple conclusion from the results: girls are doing very well, reflecting the nation's drive to empower women in all sectors of the economy. It is therefore no surprise that women are quickly taking prominent positions of leadership and responsibility in all sectors.
A more difficult task is understanding why the gender gap in Dubai is wider than the rest of the world. The latest round of PISA shows notable improvements on the 2008 assessment, but educators in Dubai will be concerned not just about the gender gap, but also about the significant variation in results between the various curricula taught in the emirate.
Is it time to debate whether the curriculum itself is fit for purpose? Does it engage and prepare students for a world that is changing at a faster pace than at any time in human history? Are teachers themselves prepared for that world? Does teacher training ensure that teachers plan lessons that challenge the most able while supporting the least able, to meet the needs of different learners? And perhaps most important of all, are schools preparing young people for a world of work, developing their entrepreneurial, employment and business skills across all school phases regardless of curriculum?
The government of Dubai is an educational leader in the region. Through its inspections scheme and its participation in international assessments, it has been prepared to highlight its successes as well as flag areas in need of improvement. The drive to be the best means that uncomfortable facts cannot be brushed aside. So it is now up to the entire community – policymakers, educators and parents – to enter a serious discussion about how to boost boys' outcomes and prepare them for a world in which their mind is their greatest competitive advantage.
Margaret Atack is a group senior director at Gems Education