School inspection in the UAE

The challenge

As a testimony to our proven track record in school inspections and commitment to excellence that we have consistently demonstrated over the years throughout the region, Education Development Trust was tasked with the provision, management and scheduling of inspections of private schools across the five Northern Emirates of the UAE under the supervision of the UAE Federal Ministry of Education. Commencing in April 2018, this work required the rapid and efficient mobilisation of highly skilled bilingual curriculum specialists over a period of 7 inspection weeks to support the evaluation, data capture and reporting of more than 100 schools in this locality.

The scale and intensity however of this new contract was hugely demanding: to complete this work, we had to inspect at an average rate of 15 schools weekly with more than 120 evaluators on the ground in any given week.

Our approach

To meet the demands of the programme, we rapidly scaled up our training and recruited additional bilingual inspectors to augment existing reserves. Our solution was to tap into the rich pool of well qualified teaching professionals available in neighbouring Jordan and partner with regional education services provider Fahrenheit Education and local Jordanian school Al Hsad Al Tarbawi in Amman to recruit and train two cohorts of talented local teaching professionals; our inspectors were trained using our prestigious RQCM certification process. Both cohorts underwent a rigorous four-day school-based training programme involving intensive learning and practical in-classroom assessments before being released into the field within weeks supported by a comprehensive mentoring model for their initial placements to ensure adherence to the highest quality standard.

Our impact

We inspected more than 260 schools over a timeframe of 14 months.

• 36 inspectors received face-to-face training with 33 going on to operate as full-time inspectors in UAE
• 29 bilingual inspectors received Level 2 RCQM team evaluator certification accredition 
• More than 260 schools were inspected across the northern emirate at a rate of up to 16 inspections per week

EDT’s RCQM accreditation has been used to train and upskill evaluators since its development over 15 years ago. Based on rigorous, tried-and-tested training methods, it provides a highly regarded certification for evaluators.