DUBAI // Twenty-eight private schools have improved their rankings this academic year, in a record for the eight years since Dubai’s education regulator began its classifications.
And the Knowledge and Human Development Authority says more than twice as many pupils now receive good or better education – 61 per cent compared with 30 per cent in 2008.
Abdulla Al Karam, director general of the KHDA, said the huge improvement was caused by better understanding of the authority’s inspection process and more competition among private schools.
“I’m proud that we have seen such a big improvement in the schools that are offering a better education to children,” Mr Al Karam said.
“Before there were fewer seats and many schools had waiting lists, but as the number of seats has increased, this has driven more competition to improve quality and attract pupils.”
The Dubai Schools Inspections Bureau’s annual report stated that it visited 149 schools offering 17 different curriculums to 253,319 pupils, from nursery to Year 12.
In previous years, schools were rated as outstanding, good, acceptable or unsatisfactory. Under new classifications, with the same grading criteria applied across the country, schools are judged to be outstanding, very good, good, acceptable, weak or very weak.
Five schools – four of them with American curriculum – showed a decline in performance but no schools are ranked as very weak.
Lycee Francais International Georges Pompidou School, Dubai International Academy and Gems Royal Dubai School jumped two levels, from good to outstanding.
Sixteen schools are rated outstanding, 13 very good, 57 good, 56 acceptable and seven weak.
“The majority of students attending schools that have adopted a French, International Baccalaureate, UK or Indian curriculums are in schools judged to be good or better overall,” said the report.
Fatma Belrehif, executive director of the inspections bureau, said significant improvement had been made in school leadership and governance.
“Almost all schools that offer good or better education have effective leadership and systems in place for self-evaluation and improvement,” Ms Belrehif said.
“As a result, students’ learning skills and their progress in key subject areas have improved steadily over time.”
American curriculum schools have made the least improvement in the eight years. The KHDA is now working with the New England Association of Schools and Colleges on mutual inspections to help them to align US and UAE requirements.
The report also details the percentage of schools that are making good or better progress on various subjects.
The percentage of schools making progress in English rose to 72 per cent from 70 per cent last year. For science, the percentage edged up 1 per cent to 65 per cent. The percentage for mathematics remained at 69 per cent.
Fifty-nine per cent of schools were improving their Islamic education, up from 55 per cent last year, but schools were still struggling with Arabic, despite increasing the percentage from 38 per cent to 44 per cent.
Under the National Agenda, the UAE aims to be among the top 20 countries globally for Programme for International Student Assessment (Pisa) tests, and to be among the top 15 in the Trends in International Mathematics and Science Study (Timss) test by 2021.
Last summer, the KHDA introduced National Agenda Parameter to encourage schools to assess their progress using external standards tests.
Slightly more than half of the schools inspected now have a good or better benchmark system in place.
Inspectors looked at 133 schools that took part in Pisa and Timms tests and found that about two-thirds were on track to meet National Agenda targets.
The quality of provision for pupils with special education needs also improved from last year. About two-thirds of schools are now better able to identify children with disabilities and 44 per cent now modify their curriculum to meet the needs of these pupils, up from 34 per cent in 2013-2014.
This has resulted in half of the special-needs pupils receiving better levels of education, compared with 38 per cent in 2013-2014. Inspection reports for individual schools will be published on the KHDA website on Monday. For more details click here.
nhanif@thenational.ae