Indian, Pakistani schools fall short of expectations

KHDA report questions pace of development; progress over last five years, linear

Indian and Pakistani schools in Dubai are falling short of expectations and senior government officials have questioned the pace of development at these schools. A new report by the Knowledge and Human Development Authority (KHDA) slammed teaching standards and called on teachers to ‘respond to specific needs of students’.

“There has been too little professional development for many teachers and school leaders have failed to address or prioritise teaching methods,” said the report released earlier on Thursday.

Sixty per cent of the schools have remained acceptable or unsatisfactory since at least 2011, according to new statistics revealed by the authority. In its earlier reports, the regulator had noted a tendency for Indian schools to promote rote learning.

Dr Abdulla Al Karam, Chairman of KHDA, noted that the schools had done well so far, but called for an ‘exponential’ growth to improve education standards. Speaking with Khaleej Times, Dr Abdulla said: “The progress over the last five years has been linear. Maybe what we have done till now at schools was good enough up to this point. Going forward there have to be significant improvements.”

Interestingly, eight out of 10 Indian schools were given recommendations to improve teaching, and only one of the 21 inspected schools made a progress. The JSS International School in Al Barsha was the only school to improve its rating from ‘acceptable’ to ‘good’ while Dubai Modern Academy and the Indian High School continued to remain ‘outstanding’.

Fatma Belrehif, Director of the Dubai School Inspection Bureau told Khaleej Times that most teachers needed urgent training to develop English language skills.

“Developing language skills of teachers is an important component of progress in these schools. We want to see school leaders help teachers understand different ways of learning English,” said Fatma.

“There has been a lot of improvement in kindergarten classes and there is a willingness to learn from other curriculums.”

Good and outstanding schools have regularly called on the education regulator to reduce the frequency of inspections. David Wilson, Director of Asian Schools at GEMS Education, believes a different approach could help the better performing schools.

“There should be a different approach for inspecting schools rated good and outstanding. There should be greater collaboration between schools — where inspection data is used to identify common weaknesses and challenges,” he said.

Highlighting the strengths of Indian schools, the KHDA report lauded them for being ‘highly effective in the way they engage and involve parents in their children’s learning’. It also recorded the success of students in learning mathematics and science in secondary school.

More than half of all students in Pakistani schools in Dubai continued to receive an unsatisfactory quality of education. Only two schools follow the National Curriculum of Pakistan and the schools still have a long way to implement KHDA recommendations.

Recommendations for schools

Schools must have strong leadership which establishes a clear direction for improvement.

Schools must have objective and rigorous self-evaluation of strengths and weaknesses.

Development of a school improvement plan to include the priorities for improvement.

There must be accurate identification and matching of support to individual students.

Schools should have effective systems for monitoring the quality of teaching and learning to ensure that students make the best possible progress.

Assessments should be used by teachers to modify the curriculum and to adapt their lessons to meet the learning needs of different groups of students.

muaz@khaleejtimes.com