SPEA enhances education through professional development programme

This enhances the position of the Emirate of Sharjah as one of the most prominent educational destinations that provides high-level outcomes.

Anyone who follows the strategy of the SPEA in the training plans it organises will find that it has been keen from the beginning on the focus of empowering private schools and nurseries to make them capable of planning and leading development processes in their institutions, as the training of hundreds of members of the educational staff has had a positive impact on the students as they are the focus and foundation of the educational process. 

When workers in educational institutions have advanced skills and high professional abilities, education is more effective and interactive, which enhances students’ understanding and motivates them to learn and innovate.

Since its establishment, the authority has been keen to train administrative and teaching bodies through professional development weeks, in addition to providing various courses and training packages under the supervision of international trainers on the training platform of the Sharjah Education Academy.

The renewal of the professional licence was linked to achieving a certain number of hours of vocational training, as an incentive to engage and compete in vocational training.

A number of workers in the education sector have confirmed that vocational training represents a sustainable investment in the future of new generations, through which it is possible to raise the level of education and provide an integrated and effective learning environment, noting that the training programmes aim to enhance the skills of teachers and administrators, which contributes to improving their job performance. It increases their efficiency in dealing with various educational variables and challenges.

Majd Al Chikh Hussein, Principal of the American School of Creative Science, praised the qualitative shift brought about by the SPEA, from its establishment until today, in the private school sector in the Emirate, appreciating the establishment of the platform that the authority provided for all schools, which includes great efforts and great investment by the authority, under the supervision of international trainers, to develop teachers and the way they teach, and thus advancing the entire educational process while specifying the number of training hours for each employee for professional development and statistics for training and its hours. 

In addition to linking the renewal of the professional licence to achieving a certain number of hours of vocational training, making schools compete for vocational training while providing facilities and courses through the Sharjah Education Academy platform with an amazing diversity of everything a teacher needs, and giving certificates of attendance and completion of training courses.

Shaima Mukhtar, Deputy Principal of the American School of Creative Science, confirmed that the SPEA is making unremitting efforts to improve the quality of education and provide professional development for all teachers in private schools in Sharjah. 

These efforts include organising specialised training courses and workshops focusing on the latest methods and modern technologies, in addition the authority provides guidance and directional programmes aimed at enhancing the skills and abilities of male and female teachers, which reflects positively on the entire educational process. 

The authority seeks, through these initiatives, to raise the level of education and achieve academic excellence in private schools in Sharjah. The authority also offers a wide range of virtual and in-person professional courses through its electronic platform and at its headquarters.

This approach and this platform provide teachers with a great opportunity to improve their skills and develop their knowledge in a comfortable and convenient way, which helps enhance the quality of education in private schools in Sharjah. 

The authority is also a major supporter of teachers and the educational leadership staff as well, with its focus on providing integrated professional development programmes for teachers, covering multiple topics such as methods of modern learning, classroom management, and the use of technology in education, in addition to specialised courses in various academic subjects, such as the Arabic language, Islamic education, and social studies. 

As for educational leaders, the authority provides professional development programmes dedicated to educational leaders and supervisors, aiming to enhance the leadership and administrative capabilities of educational leaders, preparing them for inspection and oversight visits, which contributes to improving the performance of educational institutions.

Fatima Al Ali, a graduate of the first batch of the “Proud to be a Teacher” programme, said that the SPEA seeks to raise the efficiency of teachers’ performance and search for the best educational practices, and this comes through the authority’s keenness to stimulate the educational community, providing training opportunities, exchanging opinions, and learning about educational experiences, which in turn enhances their educational leadership capabilities, and results in the development of work tools and improves teachers’ teaching methods, as the participatory meeting programmes offered by the authority and the activities and events it provides in social media programmes contribute effectively to professional development for educational staff.

More than 1,100 school principals, educational leaders, teaching staff, deputy principals, and heads of kindergarten departments in private schools, in addition to educational staff, heads of the Arabic language department, and a number of heads of various curricula departments and students, benefited from the “Professional Development Week,” which the authority organises three times in one academic year and whose topics and agenda are based on an inventory of training needs carried out by school improvement experts, and their recommendations based on their observations in the educational field. In addition to the recommendations of the reports reviewing the quality of school performance in the “Itqan” programme, which aims to develop and improve the quality of education in private schools in the Emirate so that the content is proportionate to the target audience and meets the needs of students, to ensure the improvement of educational outcomes in schools.

The authority conducted two field studies in order to achieve its goals aimed at developing the performance of private schools in the Emirate within the “Itqan” programme to evaluate and review the quality of the performance of private schools using the descriptive and analytical approach during the academic years (2022 - 2023) and (2023 - 2024) in order to measure the effectiveness of the performance of private schools and their mastery of school quality standards and distinguished educational practices, and work to help schools in their journey towards continuous improvement by conducting external verification of their level of progress, quality, and ability to achieve improvement, and to collect the necessary data and evidence to develop educational policies, appropriate intervention and training plans, and to make development decisions to ensure the efficiency of the educational system in the Emirate and improve its work.

In its first and second editions for the academic years (2022-2023) and (2023-2024), the programme targeted all 129 private schools in the Emirate, excluding only 12 schools who did not meet the conditions. Training plans and packages were developed based on the field visits that were conducted. Implemented by field teams, comparison of the current results with previous school evaluation results showed a tangible improvement in the level of education in the Emirate, as all private schools now provide “acceptable” or better education, and the number of schools that provide “good” or better education has increased from 8 schools to 79 schools. While the number of schools that have shown improvement since 2018 until now has reached 88 schools, and in total there are now 117 private schools in the Emirate that provide "acceptable" or better education, and 79 private schools that provide "good" or better education, with 68% of the schools providing "good" or better education, and 100% of schools provided "acceptable" or better education, and zero weak schools. The improvement teams within the “Itqan” programme this year carried out field visits to the targeted schools, which included 6,418 observation sessions, 2,761 joint sessions, 630 meetings, and the submission of 63 reports.

The weeks of vocational training contribute to providing the necessary support to hone the skills of workers in the educational field and enhance their opportunities for improvement through targeted training sessions that work to provide school administrations with various mechanisms and strategies to prepare the school improvement agenda and training priorities for schools, in addition to organising dialogue sessions that discuss important topics.

Professional Development Week is considered a qualitative opportunity for principals and senior leaders in schools to communicate together, with the aim of exchanging experiences and expertise, sharing and reviewing various practices and models that have proven their success and efficiency, in addition to holding participatory meetings and building sustainable learning and professional development communities in private schools in Sharjah, with the aim of generalising and accelerating the processes of continuous improvement and development.

The authority concluded the Professional Development Week for the academic year 2023-2024 under the theme “Together towards Excellence” at the Sharjah Education Academy, which included 8 dialogue sessions and a number of training meetings with the participation of an elite group of specialists and experts in the educational field, in addition to administrators, teachers, principals and deputy principals from senior and middle management, heads of kindergarten departments in private schools, in addition to educational staff, heads of the Arabic language department, and a number of heads of different curricula departments.

Among the 141 government and private nurseries in the Emirate, the authority targeted nurseries, in the first professional development week, supporting best practices in the field of early childhood that positively impact the child and family, by building and strengthening the role of nursery managers in developing “care and development plans” and participating in the process of continuous improvement. 

The week included a series of interactive workshops that were organised to build leadership capabilities and improve the quality of nurseries in light of the strategy that was developed by the authority to raise their level.

The professional development week for nurseries comes within the framework of the authority’s efforts and its continuity in working to create a high-quality educational environment that includes all educational institutions. It is considered the beginning of a series of programmes that aim to fully develop the performance of nurseries. It is part of the project “Visits to Review Improvement for Nurseries” in the Emirate, within the "Itqan" programme. This is in cooperation with the British Child Peace Foundation, which specialises in early childhood education in the United Kingdom, to support and develop the early education sector, which reflects Sharjah’s commitment to providing high-quality educational opportunities for children in the early childhood stage, as it is one of the most important educational stages, and a basic foundation for all educational stages. In addition to providing the necessary support to educational and administrative staff working in nurseries.