Sharjah: 74 private schools’ performance to be reviewed

Sharjah: Sharjah Private Education Authority (SPEA) has launched the second round of its school performance review ‘Itqan’, which will continue until next March targeting 74 private schools.

The launch on January 15 saw Dr Muhadditha Al Hashimi, chairperson of SPEA; Ziad Shatat, director of SPEA’s Continuous Improvement Department and Project Manager; a number of department heads from SPEA, and a group of evaluation and school improvement experts present for the release of the review.

The scheme that aims to implement a comprehensive review of the quality of Sharjah private schools performance was launched following extensive training courses, targeted 36 private schools in its first phase between October and November last year.

“It was a successful first phase measured by the promising results and the positive feedback,” said Dr Muhadditha.

She added that the results will contribute to achieving an exceptionally advanced education system that employs best local and international educational practices. “These results are also a testament to the commitment shown by the emirate’s private schools towards improvement.”

Results

Results of the evaluation, which is carried out in a collaborative process between the authority and schools, are shared with schools administrations within four weeks time, before being made public to community members by the end of year.

“These will help parents choose the school they believe is best for their children,” Dr Muhadditha said.

Commenting on how the evaluation is implemented based on the country’s ‘School Inspection Framework’, Ali Al Hosani, director of SPEA said review teams will be making weekly visits to schools.

“Each school will be evaluated for four consecutive working days during which team members visit classrooms, review school documents and attend school activities,” he said.

He added that meetings with partners will be part of the review process in order to analyse the results of opinion polls shared by parents in a form of questionnaire sent to them prior to the review.

“Schools then would receive detailed reports that define their performance, areas of strength, areas that require improvement and a number of recommendations as well as ratings between ‘very weak’ and ‘excellent’.”