The Knowledge and Human Development Authority’s (KHDA) latest report on the state of Indian and Pakistani schools in Dubai has raised many questions about the quality of education being imparted to students.

More than 4,000 students are enrolled in Indian schools that have been given an unsatisfactory grading. Only one of three schools offering the Pakistani curriculum was able to improve its ranking from unsatisfactory to acceptable. The report also found that there was no significant improvement in the overall performance of Indian schools over the last two years.

There has been a lot of debate about the cost of education and how sending children to school was burning holes in the pockets of most parents. There has even been talk of how the business of education was taking priority over the basics of learning. The report shows that where there is a weak leadership, there is a decline in quality of key aspects of the school.

Parents send their children to school for good education. But when this is not done, there is something fundamentally wrong in the way schools are run. The KHDA report provides a framework to work on and if managements are serious about running schools, they should take note of the flaws and correct them. Children are our future and they have a right to basic and good education. If we fail to give them a solid foundation, we will be staring at a shaky future.