Dubai: The Knowledge and Human Development Authority will introduce a new rigorous teacher recruitment process in order to improve the standard of Arabic and Islamic education in Dubai’s private schools.
The new procedure will include four stages of testing and an interview process which will be based on international practices to analyse candidates’ subject knowledge, pedagogical understanding and practical lesson planning skills.
The move is in line with the Dubai Government’s initiative to preserve local heritage and improve the overall standards of Arabic and Islamic education in schools.
The recruitment process, which will take place three times a year in September, December and May, was a response to the results of KHDA’s Dubai Schools Inspection Bureau, which show poor student performance in Arabic and Islamic education across Dubai private schools.
According to the key findings of the Inspection of Private Schools 2012-2013 report, inspectors found that improvement in student attainment and progress in Arabic as a first and second language remained low in comparison to the results of the previous year. Students’ attainment and progress in Arabic remained weak in a significant proportion of private schools in Dubai.
“We have informed the schools of our new selection process, explaining the rationale behind it. In June 2013 we received applications from 92 new Arabic and Islamic Education teachers, 18 of whom were granted teaching appointment letters,” said Jameela Al Muhairi, chief of Dubai schools inspection bureau. “Moves have also been put in place to improve the existing standard of teaching in both Arabic and Islamic education in private schools. We seek our stakeholders’ cooperation in providing better learning opportunities for students by ensuring the recruitment of effective teachers in these two key subjects.”
Once candidates pass all four stages of the recruitment process, the school offering teaching posts must seek approval after which KHDA will then issue appointment letters to successful candidates.
The report also found that when it came to the quality of teaching, learning and assessment, the findings varied depending of the curriculum of the school, as most of the teaching and learning in UK curriculum and IB schools continued to be good or better. Improvements in the quality of teaching and learning in other schools slowed in 2012-2013, and assessment practices have continued to improve in many schools, particularly in those offering a UK curriculum. However, in US, Ministry of Education and Indian curriculum schools, assessment has shown little improvement since last year.
