ABU DHABI // There were some significant shake-ups in the education sector in 2015.
For one, Dr Amal Al Qubaisi, the head of the Abu Dhabi Education Council, stepped down to become the first woman in the Arab world to lead a national assembly, the Federal National Council.
During her tenure as leader of Adec, Dr Al Qubaisi instituted a number of changes, including an overhaul of the public high school curriculum to focus more on the sciences and technology.
Adec also launched a number of programmes, clubs and competitions to promote science, technology, engineering and maths in schools. Strengthening national identity and culture also became a part of the public and private school curriculums in the emirate.
The Ministry of Education implemented a unified school inspections framework that applied to all public and private schools. The new national inspections framework ensured that schools across the emirates were judged on the same criteria and were graded on an equal set of standards.
In May, the Knowledge and Human Development Authority (KHDA) published a report looking at the quality of private schools in Dubai.
It found that standards have been steadily improving with 51 per cent of pupils receiving a “good” or “outstanding” education compared with 35 per cent in 2008.
The provision of Arabic as a first language, however, was judged to be inadequate and many of the 143 schools in the emirate were lagging behind in international benchmark testing standards.
Schools have been urged to take international tests more seriously modify curriculums in Arabic teaching to allow for pupils at different levels to progress.
Mandatory legally binding contracts between parents and schools have now been introduced to all of the private schools in the emirate by the KHDA.
The contracts state the responsibilities of both parties and include clauses for fees, extra-curricular charges, attendance, dispute resolution and bullying and must be signed before pupils can be enrolled.
In September, an ambitious campaign to get a million children in the region to read 50 Arabic books each in a year was launched by Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid, Vice President and Ruler of Dubai.
The Arab Reading Challenge has more than Dh11 million in rewards for teachers, pupils and their families and Dh3.7 million for the top school.
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