US curriculum schools in Dubai not up to par

Dubai: Schools following the US curriculum are not progressing in comparison with other schools in Dubai, a Knowledge and Human Development Authority (KHDA) report says.

According to the study, released on Monday, none of the 30 US curriculum schools improved their overall rating during the 2013-2014 academic year. It read: “US curriculum schools are not improving sufficiently, and less than three-quarters of them provide education which is at best acceptable.”

The report titled ‘Inspection of private schools 2013-2014 key findings’, revealed the inspection results of 141 private schools attended by 237,735 students in Dubai for 2013-2014.

Out of the 30 US curriculum schools in Dubai, which were inspected, only one received an outstanding rating while seven received a good rating, 21 (the majority) received an acceptable rating and one was unsatisfactory.

When it comes to the quality of education, the report found that more than 30 per cent of the declining schools were delivering a US curriculum and that teaching was not improving in US-curriculum schools.

The report also found that too few US curriculum schools engaged in internationally recognised assessments. 

GEMS Dubai American Academy was the only US curriculum school to receive an outstanding rating for three consecutive years.

When asked what differentiates its school from other US curriculum schools, the Superintendent of GEMS Dubai American Academy, Robin Appleby, told Gulf News the school was able to maintain its outstanding rating by continuing to improve.  “We maintained our rating by linking our curriculum to American standardised assessments; we have also really worked on the Arabic and Islamic subjects by developing a programme that international students can understand.”

Samar Jameel, a mother of three children who go to an American school, said she regrets putting her children in an American school.  “I admit it does have some positives, for example, my children speak English fluently but I don’t feel the schools are serious, this is most evident when I compare my kids to my sister’s children who go to British schools.”

IB and UK curriculum schools have the highest performance according to KHDA inspections. Most of the schools which received an outstanding rating follow the British or/and IB curriculum (nine out of the 12 outstanding schools were British schools.)
Among private schools in Dubai, only eight improved their overall rating in 2013-2014.
The report found that 50 schools have been acceptable for at least three years. This accounts for more than one-third of Dubai’s schools. Inspectors called for urgent action by senior leaders and governors to prevent further decline.

Modification

Modification of curriculums was found to be an area of concern that needed to be worked on as this was unsatisfactory in 20 per cent of the schools inspected. The absence of appropriate modifications prevented students with special educational needs from progressing as well as they could.

The report also found that leaders and managers in more than a third of schools were not acting decisively, promptly or effectively enough.