Dubai - Wellbeing Census targets 70,000 students in Dubai
Published: Wed 15 Feb 2017, 9:17 AM
Last updated: Thu 16 Feb 2017, 3:02 PM
The Knowledge and Human Development Authority (KHDA) has announced plans for a new wellbeing census to maintain students’ happiness in Dubai schools.
In its first phase, the carefully crafted census will collect essential data from around 70,000 children in private schools here, in a bid to find out how they are coping in school.
The information gathered will then be used to further improve student happiness and wellbeing.
The first results are expected to be out in early 2018.
KHDA will work together with the Department for Education and Child Development (DECD) in South Australia on the comprehensive project.
2018 - phase one census results70,000 students impacted intially
Census survey will take 35 minutes
Students in grades 5, 6, 7 and 8 eligible
1 census each year for 5 years
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Speaking at the announcement on Wednesday, David Engelhardt, Director of Business Intelligence at DECD said Dubai was the perfect candidate for such a project.
“The KHDA is now getting international recognition and the UAE has catapulted the ‘happiness’ concept globally. What we want to do with this data is take good science and turn it into practice that changes lives.”
The new student census will be distributed once a year, commencing later this year, and will continue over a five-year period.
Students in the last two years of primary (grades 5 and 6) and the first two years of secondary (grades 7 and 8) at all private schools in Dubai will be eligible to take the UAE-tailored survey, which will be accessed through an online portal.
It will take approximately 35 minutes to complete.
The end-goal of the census is to provide school leaders with a detailed understanding of students’ wellbeing across curriculum, nationality, and grade level.
“Next month we will send people over to start the cultural adaptation process as we need to tailor this census to the UAE audience. Preliminary data collection will start in May/June time, and following that we will then develop a data model,” Engelhardt said.
From September, it will then test the data exchange platform before taking the census to scale in October/November, across Dubai schools.
The questionnaire will use measurement scales to gauge some feedback, but will also utilise multiple choice techniques as well as open-ended questions.
When asked if this data collection could eventually be used to impact school inspection performance ratings, Dr Abdulla Al Karam, director general of KHDA told Khaleej Times, it could be a future possibility.
“When KHDA started 10 years ago inspections didn’t exist, but now they are mandatory, country-wide. We always look to continue to mature the inspection tool.”
Eventually, he said, happiness and wellbeing will be a requisite in schools, which in turn will impact school performance.
This project builds on the School of Hearts and Minds survey, which has been measuring student wellbeing in Dubai since 2014.
“The UAE hopes to be among the top happiest countries in world by 2021, so by focusing on the wellbeing of students that will help us get there,” Al Karam said.
School leaders react to new student census
Speaking to Khaleej Times, Ashok Kumar, CEO of The Indian High School said around 4,000 of his 13,000 students will actively participate in the well-being census, each year.
Like many school leaders, he welcomed the move.
“When a child is happy, their productivity enhances, their future brightens and in turn that helps build a better country.”
And with the online portal approach meaning a low respondent burden for teachers, Kumar said schools will see it as a “minimal input for a maximum output”.
For Chris McDermott, Founding Principal at Oaktree Primary School, he is 100 per cent in favour of the project.
“Sometimes we are marked by convention but that doesn’t always take you forward. For educationists, the ‘happiness’ concept is new, but now it has to be the focus and that is exactly what this census is honing in on.” Kelly@khaleejtimes.com
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