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There is no doubt that the Abu Dhabi Education Council is hard at work trying to improve the level of education in the Emirate of Abu Dhabi. The adoption of the Public Private Partnership where the public schools are run by private companies is one example of the Council's willingness to bring in bona fide experience to help out with the reform being undertaken.
Whereas we totally believe in the experience of all the operators selected for the PPP project, we have always wondered on the marriage of the different schools of thought and attitudes that exist in such cooperations. When ADEC introduced the school inspections, a little later than the Knowledge and Human Development Authority, the authority overseeing education in the Emirate of Dubai, they decided to keep the results private. Contrary to the the KHDA's choice to make those results public.
But the reason for this article is not the comparison between the two councils. The reason for this article is the recent signing of a Memorandum of Understanding between ADEC and Advanced Education Inc. for the accreditation of schools in Abu Dhabi. It is not very clear what the MoU plans to achieve. Are AdvancED going to play an advisory role to help ADEC set accreditation criteria? or are they going to be the accreditation authority for the schools?
With goodwill and a good budget, there is a lot you can do. ADEC has both. AdvancED will be offered the location and all the supplies they need. Their experience is unchallenged. But here's a thought:
The United States is currently in a whirlwind of assessment and criticism of its own educational system. we have no doubt that AdvancED will not be strangers to the discussions and suggestions and will certainly have a role in the outcome of this storm. It would certainly be very interesting to compare the ideas they will share in the US and in the UAE as to the standards and requirements needed for, what they believe, is quality education. It would be interesting to learn their views on segregated education, on religious studies, on professional development. it will be very interesting to learn how they will view the differences in a teacher from Wisconsin and a teacher from Roueiss.
The blond and blue-eyed consultant still carries an added advantage to many people in the region, but the time has long been here for the locals to learn, adapt, and implement according to the needs that they alone are extremely aware of.
We believe that it would have been a much better use of funds to set up a group of young, energetic Emiratis to be sent to work at different accreditation authorities around the globe. They would be able to learn the different processes involved in setting accreditation criteria and they would have been able to design an accreditation process born and bred in Abu Dhabi.
Comments(1):
National Initiatives & Local Expertise is a Must
Saturday, May 29, 2010 Sonia
You certainly have a point when reflecting on the effect of importing Western solutions to the UAE. This is an issue that seems to be more and more frequent in the discourse on educational reform in the GCC. For example, recently there was an article about the influx of Western teachers in public primary schools who speak no Arabic and Emirati teacher candidates graduating to find no jobs in UAE schools. But perhaps due consideration has been given to using the experience of AdvancED to support job-embedded local capacity building? That would be great no? This would permit the marriage of foreign expertise with local expertise. This is perhaps an interim solution until a cadre of keen Emiratis who want to take on the issue of school effectiveness, improvement, and accountability for their schools has been developed. I am not minimizing your argument regarding the blond hair blue-eyed advantage in winning UAE contracts. However, I would submit that there is more to the decision making process since the Finnish, Canadians, and Dutch (Top 3 in PISA rankings) were not invited to work side by side with ADEC - and they also have blue eyes and blond hair. Rather, the Americans (not even in the top 10 in the PISA ranking) were offered the MOU. Regardless, there are only a few jurisdictions who are addressing issues of accountability and improvement with proven success in varying contexts. These pockets of excellence respond to different kinds of policies in different countries. The local districts or schools made the system work for them - and I can see the same can happen here. But what is cause for concern when I think about the situation here is the serious gap in self-evaluations and in-school assessment practices across most schools (Dubai KHDA results). This necessarily means that schools are unable to measure growth in real terms (with actual value-added measures for student achievement and classroom practices). When there are no valid and reliable measures, there is a LOT of room for interpretation. I guess we will have to wait and see how AdvancED and ADEC will work together. But there is room for keen Emiratis to be involved in the policy and program decisions in a learning cycle. There is a lot of work that needs to be done and job-embedded learning is the most sustainable kind in adult education. This means that the presence of AdvancED can still serve as a great opportunity for Emiratis who want to make a difference.