Interactive culture missing in schools

DUBAI — Of the 223 public schools across the UAE (except Abu Dhabi), only 13 per cent have been awarded a ‘highly effective’ rating in ‘classroom culture’, according to evaluations conducted by the Centre for British Teachers for Education (CfBT).

The CfBT, a UK-based education trust, has evaluated these schools, besides 25 private schools, in Dubai and other emirates since 2009. The centre has been working along with the Ministry of Education to evaluate the schools.

Eileen Owens, principal consultant of the CfBT, said: “The numbers are low largely because teachers perhaps do not have enough experience of up-to-date teaching methods. Teaching is often still very teacher centered. It must be made interactive.”

Speaking with Khaleej Times on the sidelines of the Second Annual Education Conference organised by the Ministry of Education on Wednesday, she added: “The 25 private schools do not receive any kind of accreditation. Every school receives an evaluation report and the schools have one year to work on the recommendations that we provide to them. Re-evaluations are also conducted a year later.”

Based on international teaching and learning standards, the CfBT grades schools in three categories — Highly Effective, Effective and Not Yet Effective. The schools are judged on the basis of six criteria or value points, namely leadership of the school, school as a community, school’s approach to the students’ learning, classroom climate, personal development, and student attainment and programmes.

The centre has also been training Emirati school principals and vice-principals to evaluate the schools. So far, 800 school administrators have been trained with the CfBT.

The ongoing inspections are set to continue till 2014, wherein the CfBT aims to evaluate 580 public schools. The centre is expected to release an annual report towards the end of this month. The centre also eventually plans to introduce evaluators to inspect Asian schools.

Owens pointed out that the schools failed to give a highly effective performance in classroom climate, or teaching and learning techniques probably due to the lack of availability of modern teaching techniques.

Owens explained that evaluations last for two days and a minimum of four to eight evaluators are employed in each school.

dhanusha@khaleejtimes.com