Dubai: The number of students attending poorly performing Indian curriculum schools has nearly doubled over the past four years.
While 2,277 students attended unsatisfactory schools in 2009, as many as 4,121 students are now enrolled at such schools.
The worrying figures were disclosed as the Knowledge and Human Development Authority (KHDA) released results for the 2012-2013 inspection cycle at Indian and Pakistani schools in Dubai, on Monday. Read the full report
There has also been no significant improvement in the overall performance of Indian schools, the report finds. The answer may lie in the fact that most schools rate themselves too high, as this stands in the way of coming up with plans to improve, officials said.
Indian and Pakistani curriculum schools inspection results for the academic year 2012-2013 were announced on Monday by Knowledge and Human Development Authority (KHDA).
Results of the inspection conducted by the Dubai Schools Inspection Bureau (DSIB) have found that there was no significant change in the overall performance of Indian Curriculum schools from last year. As only two Indian curriculum schools, Buds Public School and Little Flowers English school have improved from unsatisfactory to acceptable. Out of the three Pakistani schools only Pakistan Education Academy moved up from unsatisfactory to acceptable, the other two remain unsatisfactory.
The schools that topped the charts this years are the same as the ones who did in the academic year 2011-2012, Dubai modern High School and The Indian High School who were the only two schools to receive outstanding in both Pakistani and Indian Schools
One of the key factors that schools should implement in order to improve their rating according to Jameela Muhairy Chief of DSIB self evaluating correctly. “One of the findings that we have found is that schools fail to evaluate themselves correctly, only 30 percent of Indian curriculum schools rated good or better categories in this aspect. This is a key factor that schools need to work on because if the school does not know its own strengths and weaknesses how can it improve?. ”
Indian curriculum schools with good or better leadership were found to have improved in teaching by 67 per cent; according to the results where leadership is strong the quality of teaching improves.
Special education needs is another important aspect that needs to improve as inspectors found a number of weaknesses in the arrangements of almost all Indian Schools.
According to the number identified by these schools children with special needs account for 3113 students which is around 5 per cent of the total Indian population in private education in Dubai.
Other aspect that needs to be improved is the teaching quality in Kindergarten, elementary (grades 1 to 5) as it was found to be the weakest of all phases in most schools.
As for Pakistani Schools only one school is rated acceptable and the other two are unsatisfactory. Common areas of concern were found to be leadership and quality of teaching and learning.
Noor Nazzal is an Intern at Gulf News
