50% Dubai students get good-to-great education

With private schools in Dubai revising their fee structure to add up the approved increase prescribed by the Knowledge and Human Development Authority (KHDA) guidelines, more students are now attending ‘outstanding’ or ‘good’ schools in the emirate than in the previous years.

According to the key findings in the sixth annual report from Dubai School Inspection Bureau (DSIB), over half the student population in the emirate – 120,408 – are getting ‘outstanding’ or ‘good’ education.

This is a marked improvement. In the year 2008-09, when DSIB first started the school checks, only 30 per cent of student population had access to the top schools.

“More students are now attending good or outstanding schools than in the previous years,” reads the DSIB report.

As per the inspection report for 2013-14 academic year, 21,710 students attend ‘outstanding’ schools, while 98,698 go to ‘good’ schools.

The number of students attending ‘acceptable’ schools were 106,644, while those in ‘unsatisfactory’ schools were 10,683. The total student population touched 237,735.

The DSIB graded 12 schools as ‘outstanding’, 57 ‘good’, 64 ‘acceptable’ and 8 ‘unsatisfactory’. Based on these grading, KHDA had earlier announced that the school fee increase will be 3.48 per cent for 'outstanding' schools, 2.61 per cent for 'good' and 1.74 per cent for the rest.

According to the report, eight schools improved their overall performance grades and continued to make improvements. Of these, two schools moved up the ranks from ‘unsatisfactory’ to ‘acceptable’.

“This is the first year that no school has declined in its overall rating,” the report highlighted.

However, 70 schools showed no improvement and remained persistently in the categories of ‘acceptable’ or ‘unsatisfactory’.

“No US curriculum school improved its overall rating this year. US curriculum schools are not improving sufficiently and just under three quarters of them provide education which is at best acceptable. All IB and French schools provide good quality education,” it read.

More than 4,000 more Emirati students now attend private schools than in 2008-9. And the proportion of Emirati students receiving a good or better quality of education has risen by 10 per cent, the report highlighted.

The report emphasized the need to develop teaching staff, inaccurate self-evaluation by schools, lack of adequate evaluation and assessment in schools, managers and leaders absent from taking control over operations were points for concern.

Also, “three-quarters of schools had shortcomings in Arabic as a first and additional language. In some, there was a slight improvement in speaking and listening but little improvement in reading and writing. Approaches to teaching and learning in Arabic were too often repetitive and did not motivate or engage students”.

Number of students in private schools inspected in 2013-14

Tables and statistics credit: [Courtesy KHDA]

 

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