Abu Dhabi: Following the end of the 2015-2016 academic year for most pupils in Abu Dhabi, the emirate’s top education official has launched a weeklong initiative to obtain feedback about the sector’s recent performance.

Dr Ali Al Nuaimi, director general at the Abu Dhabi Education Council (Adec), the emirate’s education sector regulator, announced that the aim is to collect constructive feedback about the past year that can inform future strategies for the sector.

Surveys have therefore been created to obtain responses from all groups that contribute to education in Abu Dhabi, including schools, teachers, universities, corporate partners, Adec staff, parents and pupils, and they will be sent out on January 26. The response forms for certain groups will also be available online during the week through the Adec’s website.

“We would like to listen to every relevant person about the services and performance of the education sector, as well as their suggestions for improvement. These contributions are invaluable to improving the overall efficiency of the education system,” Dr Al Nuaimi said at a press conference held to launch the initiative.

Individuals who participate in the campaign, such as parents or pupils, will have a choice to stay anonymous or take ownership of their feedback. In addition, schools will also collect responses from various groups through a series of workshops that they will organise during the week.

The Adec will also be informing residents about the initiative, titled ‘Education First’, through social media channels, and use #educationfirst as a Twitter handle for related news and updates.

Abu Dhabi currently has 255 public schools and 186 private schools. Between them, they enrol about 360,000 pupils.

This year has seen a number of notable changes to the emirate’s education sector. Dr Amal Al Qubaisi, current Speaker of the UAE’s Federal National Council, the country’s Emirati representative authority, relinquished her position at the helm to Dr Al Nuaimi, who was previously Vice-Chancellor at UAE University.

For the first time, preliminary findings from inspections of public schools were also released, highlighting problems with corporal punishment and teacher absenteeism. Another unprecedented move saw 24 private schools that had failed to show significant improvement in their education standards have a freeze placed on their ability to enrol new pupils. At the same time, three private facilities were also ranked ‘Outstanding’, the highest rank attainable, signalling for the first time that any school had reached this highest quality standard.