“Itqan” enhanced 86% of Sharjah's private schools performance

July 02, 2026 / 10:39 PM

Sharjah24: Eighty-six percent of Sharjah's private schools have raised their performance levels since 2018, according to results from the fourth cycle of the Sharjah Private Education Authority's "Itqan" programme for the 2025-2026 academic year — one of the emirate's key initiatives to drive up education quality in line with international best practice.

Schools reassessing cycle

This cycle covered 31 private schools spanning nine curricula, out of 127 schools across the emirate that together teach 39,664 pupils. The review focused on schools that had previously been rated "Good" and were now reaching the end of the two-year window before they came up for reassessment, with SPEA checking whether those improvements had held and whether outcomes had continued to move forward.

Four cycles, one clear trend

Looking across all four cycles of Itqan — 2022-2023, 2023-2024, 2024-2025 and 2025-2026 — the cumulative picture shows steady, sustained improvement across Sharjah's private schools since the 2018 and 2019 baseline evaluations. With this cycle complete, every one of the emirate's 127 private schools now delivers at least an "Acceptable" standard of education: one school rated "Outstanding," 19 "Very Good," 77 "Good" and 30 "Acceptable," with no school falling into the "Weak" or "Very Weak" categories.

This cycle's results

Of the schools reassessed this time, five moved up to "Very Good" and 24 held or reached "Good," while two were rated "Acceptable." A further 21 schools kept their existing "Good" rating. Five schools were brought into the review for the first time, with three of them rated "Good" and two "Acceptable" — again, none fell below that.

The numbers behind these ratings translate directly into pupil experience. Of the 213,223 pupils enrolled across the schools covered by this review, 184,503 — about 87 percent — are now taught in schools rated "Good" or above, while the remaining 28,720 are in "Acceptable" schools. None are in a school rated "Weak" or "Very Weak".

Set against the 2018-2019 baseline, the shift is stark: the number of pupils in "Good" or better schools has grown from 25,351 to 184,503, while those in schools below "Good" have fallen from 146,539 to 28,720 over the same period.

Al Hosani: results reflect "qualitative progress"

Ali Al Hosani, Director-General of SPEA, said the Itqan results point to qualitative progress across Sharjah's private education sector and reflect the impact of joint efforts to raise education quality and build a culture of continuous improvement. He congratulated the schools that improved their performance this cycle, praised their work on teaching practices and outcomes, and said the results affirm Sharjah's push for high-quality education — and the effectiveness of the evaluation and improvement system behind it.