Schools need to collaborate to improve education: Study

Schools collaborating together – instead of solely competing against one another – can help improve the quality of overall education in the emirate, according to a report that was presented at the Global Education and Skills Forum (GESF).

The World Bank, along with the Knowledge and Human Development Authority (KHDA), released the ‘Collaboration Road: Dubai’s Journey towards Improved School Quality’ report in Dubai on Sunday.The report highlights how the KHDA has created collaboration among schools through initiatives and projects such as ‘What Works’, ‘Living Arabic’, ‘Lighthouse’ and ‘Abundance’. While these have increased teamwork among schools, the World Bank’s online survey showed that 45 per cent of teachers have never participated in these events even though they believed in its advantages.

“In this study, collaboration refers to a central explicit objective for education improvement between or within schools.”More specifically, collaboration with schools refers to schools working with one another with the aim of school improvement, while collaboration within schools is used to describe teachers working with their peers with the interest of improving teaching and learning,” the report said.

Hind Al Mualla, chief of creativity, happiness and innovation at the KHDA, said there used to be a “serious lack of collaboration” among private schools in Dubai.”When we look at the collaboration before 2012, we found that there were two schools next to each other for years and they didn’t talk to each other at all.The only reason they would talk was to organise the parking lot and that was their only reason to collaborate,” she said.

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