Jameela Al Muhairi: Schools evaluation to ensure the quality of education and to be a reference for educational decision-makers
- The evaluation process will take place in accordance with the new unified framework of the evaluation process at the bin level
- Training the first group of school directors on school self-evaluation
On Sunday, the Ministry of Education will begin the process of evaluating public schools according to new standards and mechanisms in line with the Ministry's development plan for education. The process includes a number of 162 schools in the first phase, and will continue in all schools until the year 2017.
The Ministry of Education has earlier organized an introductory meeting on the new evaluation process, its steps and related issues at the Higher Colleges of Technology for female students in Dubai, where H.E. Jameela Ah Muhairi met with 500 educational leaders, field managers and school directors, in order to announce the date of evaluation, and review its mechanisms within the new unified framework of the evaluation process at the bin level.
The meeting was attended by HE Marwan Al-Sawaleh, Undersecretary for Academic Affairs for General Education, Fawzia Hassan Ghareeb, Assistant Undersecretary for Educational Operations Sector, H.E. Rabaa Al-Sumaiti, Assistant Undersecretary for the Performance Improvement Sector and H.E. Dr. Hamad Al Yahiai, Assistant Undersecretary for the Curriculum and Evaluation Sector.
H.E. stressed the importance of achieving the National Agenda and the UAE Vision 2021, especially with regard to the need to reach a high-level educational system that meets the aspirations, pointing out that this objective is a reason for us to strengthen the evaluation of schools, as it is an important indicator for the school, students, teaching staff, educational decision-makers, and policy-makers of the UAE's educational policy makers.
H.E. explained that the process of evaluating schools is important in its pivotal role to ensure the quality of education, as well as it is almost a scientific reference methodology through which governments can ensure the quality of education, along with the need of decision-makers to implement the national policies and goals, noting that without comprehensive evaluation of schools, this goal can't actually be achieved.
H.E. added that the process of schools evaluation contributes to determining the level of schools, strengths and weaknesses, improving the efficiency and effectiveness of schools, and providing parents, students, schools, investors in the private sector and the Ministry of Education with information and details for each school, in addition to enabling parents to obtain reliable information on the performance level of their schools, and the opinions of students and teachers, to be taken into consideration on the performance level of the school.
H.E. added that the evaluation process also helps to support the good and innovative practices of education and its dissemination, aiming at promoting school leaders to make decisions on development priorities. The evaluation will reflect the real status of each school and its needs, as well as clarify the role and responsibilities of both the school and the Ministry in providing the necessary improvement and development.
H.E. stressed the importance of preparation for the processes of supervision, which are represented in understanding the framework of the standards of school evaluation and supervision, and the methodology of its implementation, as it is based on impact assessment, not efforts assessment, and each school should conduct performance self-evaluation, gathering evidence and analyzing the data, and evaluating all the aspects of its work in realistic and credible manner. H.E. noted that in this regard, the first group of school directors has been trained on self-evaluation of the school and its importance as a methodological tool for evidence-based development with the participation of domain managers, while the second group of school directors will be trained by domain administrators.
H.E. stressed the need for all efforts in the field of education to be fully integrated in order to make the best use of the evaluation process, which reflects positively on improving the achievements of our students and developing them academically and personally, in addition to the need to increase efforts and energies and encourage the teaching staff and parents and all parties involved in the educational process to participate in achieving sustainable development of our schools.
H.E. added that the previous meeting organized by the Ministry of about 500 domain and school directors focused on the importance of self-evaluation through the ability of the school administration to evaluate the school and the Ministry of Education's keenness in training the stakeholders on the standards and how to draft self-evaluation, along with the importance of depicting the status of education as it contributes to the final outcome in the progress of school performance.
H. E. said that the Ministry of Education, represented by the Quality Assurance team, will continue to be in direct contact with the ongoing evaluations, follow-up the procedures and supervising the steps taken to ensure the accuracy of the evaluation.
H.E. concluded that the main objective of the evaluation process is to highlight the quality of the performance of school levels in the light of the standard of the unified framework at the UAE level and to promote schools in depicting its status, strength and improvement priorities, in order to empower the schools to set the needed development plans more accurately and reliably, thus prioritizing improvements.
13/04/2017