Indian School Inspection Results reveal good news for thousands of students

The results of the second year of inspections for the 21 Indian schools in Dubai tell a story of hard work and improvement, the Knowledge and Human Development Authority (KHDA) announced today.

The results for the academic year 2010-2011 were: 11 schools have been categorized as Good; seven are acceptable; and three remain Unsatisfactory. None was found to be Outstanding, but some schools have attained “Good with Outstanding features”.

The full reports for these schools, and the individual results are available on KHDA’s website www.khda.gov.ae. The Indian and Pakistani schools were inspected earlier than other curricula schools because they have a different academic year, which begins in April. The other school results will be announced in May.

In the 2009-2010 cycle, when 20 schools following Indian curricula were inspected, seven were categorized as Good, 10 as Acceptable, and three Unsatisfactory. None was classified as Outstanding.

This means that there are now 35,583 pupils studying in Good category Indian schools, compared with 24,294 last year. The number of students attending Unsatisfactory schools has dropped, from 2,277 in 2009-2010, to 1,995 this year.

The results were announced at a meeting of principals, teachers and parents from 23 Indian and Pakistani schools. Guests of honour were HE Sanjay Verma, Consul General of India in Dubai,

Jameela Al Muhairi, Chief, Dubai Schools Inspection Bureau, said: “We are very happy with these results as we can see real improvement even in such a short period of time. Of course it will take time to reach our goals, but we are already seeing the fruits of hard work by many of the schools.

“We knew from last year that students in our Indian schools are keen to learn, and that their attitude and behavior is good. This has proved to be a strong foundation for introducing new teaching methods in some schools. We are confident that the next year will see some good professional development introduced for the teaching of Arabic, which is still a weakness in many of these schools.”

The Indian community was praised for its involvement in their childrens’ education, as well as their active participation in the questionnaire which goes to every household before a school is inspected. This year 24,664 (42%) of parents responded, giving inspectors a fresh viewpoint of the schools they were visiting.

Miss Al Muhairi added: “We want to thank parents for their help. It shows us that they support quality and improvement, which is why we are inspecting schools. They are choosing the right school for their children based on our findings and this customer demand for quality should drive further improvements.”

Pakistani school results

There are three Pakistani curriculum schools in Dubai, with a total of 3,525 pupils. Their inspection results this year were the same as last, with one being found to be Acceptable, and the other two categorized as Unsatisfactory.

The two Unsatisfactory schools have both received two follow-through inspections over the past academic year, but little improvement has been seen. Inspectors singled out poor attendance with extended leaves of absence, along with weak governance, as impeding any signs of progress.

The parents’ questionnaire was answered by 150 (12%) of Pakistani parents, and they reported a high level of dissatisfaction with channels of communication with their childrens’ schools. Teachers complained of a lack of professional development.

Miss Al Muhairi said: “The stories of the Indian and Pakistani schools are very different. We would like to see the community working together to make education better. We hope the school principals will form partnerships, sharing their strengths and learning from their weaknesses.

“Our goal is to see a generation of children growing up in Dubai with critical thinking skills, being taught by the most modern methods. We want to encourage schools to practice self-evaluation, and to learn to use it as a tool for planning their own improvements. We know these changes take time, but we feel we are now taking steps in the right direction.”