ABU DHABI, June 3rd, 2010: Today marked the conclusion of Abu Dhabis first International Conference on School Inspection and Quality Assurance, hosted at the Emirates Palace. The event was deemed a positive step towards raising standards and educational integrity in private schools in the Emirate of Abu Dhabi, the Abu Dhabi Education Council (ADEC) said in a press release.

The conference saw education professionals from many countries along with representatives from the Ministry of Education (MoE), Knowledge Human Development Authority (KHDA), and the Abu Dhabi Education Council (ADEC). Throughout the three-day event, focus groups and open discussions took place to gain a more diverse perspective on issues currently found in schools systems and ways of tackling them.

"The conference was fruitful due to the participation of our fellow international experts who gave us their experience," said , Director General at ADEC Dr. Mugheer Khamis Al Khaili.

"With the success of this conference, we plan to make this an annual event as the Council constantly wants to advance its systems," he added.

According to ADEC, discussions focused today with short-term and medium-term recommendations to be implemented in schools focusing on several aspects: School leadership, including training of school administration and faculty as well as raising awareness of self inspection.

Data gathering, which includes student attainments, attendance, and scores. This data will link from the private school to ADECs Electronic Student Information System (e-SIS) which will serve as a basis for decision making for ADEC and schools.

Call to governance in schools and school boards consisting of principals, education professionals, and parents to ensure the needs of all stakeholders are heard and met.

Other recommendations brought about during the conference included having high performing schools become centers of excellence among their counterparts. These schools will be used as training facilities for faculty in the education field.

Private schools were also encouraged to partner with businesses to initiate more business focused programs in schools to meet the needs of Abu Dhabis growing and diversified economy.

Principals were also encouraged to participate in the schools inspections and setting up frameworks as it builds more credibility to the system. Within the framework, when deciding on the frequency and intensity of inspection, inspectors must look at the individual performance of each school. Low performing schools should have more inspections while higher performing schools should have less. It is also very important to develop an inspection framework for public schools with similar factors of the private school framework.

"Inspections must be done with, and not to schools," said Sir Mike Tomlinson, a prominent international education reform expert from the United Kingdom. "We need both school autonomy, and school inspections, with increasing involvement of the private sector," he added noting the importance of having school principals and leaders, who have a strong understanding of the role, to be involved in inspection teams as well as tailoring inspections to meet individual schools needs depending on their overall results.

Those present also agreed on the notion that inspection frameworks must be formed by the needs of the individual country. While it is valuable to identify parts of the inspection system that work well in other places, the final inspection process cannot be imported it must be in line with the culture, policy, and expectations of the country.

Ray Langley of Serco, a partner inspection company of ADEC, noted that this years inspections had been a rewarding but challenging project. He mentioned as a key challenge is the idea of schools being inspected the same way they are in other countries. In fact, the process has been adapted to the United Arab Emirates cultural norms.

Head of Dubai Schools Inspection Bureau-Strategic Projects at KHDA Fatma Belrehif presented Dubais inspection framework and recommending that KHDA needs to raise awareness of the inspection process in order for schools to be more accepting. She also spoke of challenges KHDA faced, one which was reinsuring schools and faculty that the evaluation process is fair due to schools not understanding the criteria of the evaluation even though the criteria are published on the website.

Director of School Approval and Accreditation Department at the MoE Shaikha Al Shamsi concluded the conference by presenting the mission of the department which is to establish a special criteria for school accreditation and to set standards for the quality of teaching in public and private schools. The main challenge they are facing is raising awareness among schools as to the proposed criteria that they will be accounted for.

Copyright Emirates News Agency (WAM) 2010.