Overview of Education System
The Emirate of Dubai has a unique education landscape, offering a complete education system for boys and girls from kindergarten through higher education that is free for residents of Dubai through public schools, colleges, and universities. Education from primary to upper middle school is universal and compulsory.
The United Arab Emirates Ministry of Education provides services for public schools and policies and regulations for public and private schools. For public schools, the Ministry is solely responsible for school administration structure, staff recruitment and compensation, curriculum design and improvement, and the availability of resources.4
The Knowledge and Human Development Authority (KHDA), an independent educational board, was established in 2007 to develop the knowledge and human resources sectors in the emirate. KHDA identifies and implements evidenced-based strategies that are tailored to Dubai. These strategies, in addition to the qualitative data collected through school inspections, enable KHDA to elevate evidence‑based policymaking with private schools in Dubai. This authority regulates the private schools in Dubai in alliance with the general policy of the Ministry. KHDA’s goals are to raise the quality of education to the highest international standard, ensure the continuous development of the education sector, and improve the quality and outcomes of education at all stages.5
In 2008, the Dubai Schools Inspection Bureau was launched to define and measure education quality in order to support the improvement of education and inform improvement planning at the school and policy levels. Since 2009, significant reform has taken place at the school level, including the implementation of annual school inspections for private schools. Inspections have been driven by the same performance standards for the academic achievement of students, their personal development and support, the quality of education, and the effectiveness with which schools are led and managed. This consistency has allowed valid comparisons to be made across the seven year period.6
Overall enrollment of students in Dubai schools is continuing to grow, with a 6.5 percent increase in the number of students per year from 2010 to 2015. The number of students in Dubai’s public schools has increased at an annual rate of 2 percent over the past five years. Dubai also has an extensive private education sector, with 72 of its 185 private schools opening in the last 10 years. Currently, 90 percent of students in Dubai attend private schools, while 58 percent of Emirati students are educated in this sector. In private schools that have been inspected, 61 percent of students are educated in schools rated “good” or higher.7 More students attend private schools in the lower grade levels than in the upper grade levels.
Some key features of the educational landscape in Dubai include:
- A large, increasing proportion of expatriate students (81 percent of all students)
- An increasing proportion of Emirati national students educated in private schools (58 percent)
- The availability of 17 curricula across the school system, including the United Kingdom curriculum (31 percent of private schools), the Indian curriculum (30 percent of private schools), and the United States curriculum (21 percent of private schools)
- The most branch campus universities in the world8,9