Quality teaching a challenge for Abu Dhabi's private schools

Speakers during Mubadala’s Youth Forum 2014. —Supplied photo

Sustaining high quality teaching is a challenge for majority of the private schools here, a senior education official disclosed on Tuesday. Edward Murtagh, inspection and monitoring division manager at the Abu Dhabi Education Council (Adec), noted that “annual turnover of teachers at most schools (are) in excess of 20 per cent”.

“Having stable, qualified (and) experienced teaching staff is a significant and pre-requisite for improving schools,” Murtagh said, adding that attracting, inducting, developing and retaining teachers should be a priority.

According to him, one common trait by high performing schools is that school leaders invest time and energy in carefully selecting their teachers, as well as providing proactive staff development and support policies such as induction and mentoring programmes for newly-joined staff.

Speaking during an education conference in the capital on the ‘Impact of School Inspection’, Murtagh cited the recurring issues in private schools in the emirate during the three cycles (five-year) of inspection. Quality of teaching was one of them. He said a “typical description” of an Abu Dhabi private school teacher include being “young, female, inexperienced” and “transient”.

In Cycle 2 (2011-2013) inspection, he noted, it was found that about two-thirds of private schools employed a significant number of teachers who have no teaching qualification or any specific training in teaching. “As a result, knowledge and understanding of effective teaching method are not widely understood in these schools.

“One of the most visible consequences of poorly qualified teachers can be found in kindergarten classes, for frequently inspections find that methods unsuitable for young children are commonly employed. Some kindergarten classrooms provide very few opportunities for children to learn, play to choose some of the activities they take part in or to engage in learning activities collaboratively with other children,” he related.

Inspection also revealed that some lessons are textbooks-led, deductive or teacher-centered rather than student-centred. “The quality of teaching and learning frequently does not meet satisfactory standards and very often these result in students (being) insufficiently challenged and their progress unsatisfactory.”

Other recurring issues he cited included the lack of parental engagement, national identity and culture, and curriculum quality.

Parental engagement

In addition to the periodic inspection, thematic inspections were also carried out last academic year to focus on parental engagement. “The overall conclusion drawn in these thematic inspections is that schools are aware of the importance of parental engagement and majority of the government or private schools address this area.”

He said a number of private and public schools have developed a parental engagement policy and set up parental engagement strategies over a wide range of issues. Among these is the communication strategy.

“Many private schools developed sophisticated systems for communicating with parents in the form of homework diaries and school handbooks and e-portals to enable parents to access information about curricula, homework and student progress.”

In contrast, parental engagement in government schools focus more on managing face-to-face engagement and building school community where parents are centrally involved. Government school parents are more likely to feel they have a say in decision-making in the school, said Murtagh.

National identity and culture

Around 24 per cent of school students in private schools are Emiratis, while those in KG classes constitute 28 per cent. “It can hardly be surprising in these circumstances that there are dangers of suppression of local values and culture. The Abu Dhabi 2030 vision is to maintain UAE values, culture and heritage and the education system have an essential role in transmitting national values.

“There’s a widespread perception that private schools in Abu Dhabi do not give sufficient priority to promoting national identity and culture.” But in a thematic investigation last year, Adec found that almost all schools take their obligation to promote national identity and culture seriously. However, concerns remain on the teaching of the Arabic language.

Based on the inspections of 85 schools in 2013-14, the grade level for Arabic was significantly lower than English, Math and Science. “Many schools have now begun recognising that Arabic is part of the agenda and integrated this in their school improvement plan,” said Murtagh.

Dr Amal Al Qubaisi, Director-General of Adec, said: “We must ensure that Arabic language is a key component of teaching and learning not only for UAE and other Arab nationals, but also for non-Arabic speakers enrolled in private schools. We need to help them learn our language in order to reach a deeper understanding of our culture and values and also to develop these students’ future opportunities.”

Irtiqaa

The Irtiqaa (aspiration) programme assesses the school’s performance against eight standards. These include students’ achievement and progress; personal development of students; teaching quality; meeting students’ needs through curriculum; protection, care, guidance and support of students; quality of accommodation and facilities; resources that help a school achieve its objectives; and competence of leadership and management of the school.

The evaluation measures follow an eight-point scale of 1-8 (outstanding to poor), which determines the ranking Band A (1-3), Band B (4-5) and Band C (6-8).

Each cycle of inspection are carried out every two years starting in 2009-11. Cycle 3 inspections will be fully completed by the end of the current academic year 2014-15 covering a total of 407 inspections of private schools. Inspections of government schools will also be concluded this academic year.

Partial results of cycle 3 inspections have shown positive trends with nearly 60 per cent of private schools providing satisfactory or better quality of education — double from cycle 1. The proportion of schools in Band C (in need of significant improvement) has also decreased significantly from 72 per cent in Cycle 1 to 44 per cent in Cycle 3. -olivia@khaleejtimes.com