Parents give top marks to quality of education in Qatar

Qatar has always placed high importance on education, with some of the world’s top schools and colleges opening up branches in the city.

Now, the 11th annual report by the School Evaluation Office at the Ministry of Education and Higher Education has found that a majority of parents are satisfied by the quality of education imparted to their wards in Qatar.

The annual report, which gives key information about education during the 2014-15 academic year, said that 84% of parents were pleased with the quality of education their children received in local schools.

The same percentage of parents said they were happy with the way the schools dealt with their children.

Almost 92% of school managers and 71% of teachers were found to be happy about students' discipline.

Omar Abdulaziz Al Neama, director of the School Evaluation Office, pointed out that the new edition of the report presented a quantitative and qualitative view of the reality of education in Qatar as it includes ‘accurate details on the education process and all its sectors.’

According to the report, 72% of teachers are content with their salary levels though opinions differed from school to school.

While 80% of teachers at local independent schools said they were happy with their salaries, the satisfaction rate was 35% at International schools and 29% at Arabic private schools.

Teachers spent an average of 35.5hrs training to develop their professional performance during the period covered by the report.

Teachers' years of experience amounted to an average of 11.8 years (11.7 at local Independent schools, 11.9 at International schools and 15.4 at Arabic private schools).

School libraries have 12.4 books per student with an average of 63% of students saying they were delighted to take part in the diverse activities provided by the schools (64% at local Independent schools, 62% at International schools, and 55% at Arabic private schools).

The average number of students for each teacher came to 11.1 (8.3 at local Independent schools, 15.9 at International schools, and 17.9 at Arabic private schools).

Around 74% of parents gave favourable comments about the quality of communication they had with schools regarding their children's education.

Regarding the nationality of students, the report said Qataris represented 52% of the total strength, while 34% were other Arab students and 14% non-Arabs. Around 2% of the students had some type of disability or learning difficulty.

The average spending of families on the education of a student during last year amounted to QR12,690 (QR8,517 for local Independent schools, QR21,633 for International schools and QR 17,485 for Arabic private schools).

Around 81% of the schools in the country provided facilities for students with disability (100% at local Independent schools, 49% at International schools, and 42% at Arabic private schools).

Some 78% of schools included parents in their various official committees, meetings and councils (91% at local Independent schools, 51% at International schools, and 100% at Arabic private schools).

The aspiration levels of students in the country were found to be high with 74% of them, hoping to pursue a post-graduate degree and 13% a university degree. However, the rest said they would be content with their school education.

Courtesy: gulf-times.com