Proposing Revised KHDA Model of School Improvement: Identification of Factors for Sustainable Performance of Dubai Private Schools

Abstract

This paper investigatesthe school’s organizational environment and identify the missing links in the current Knowledge and Human Development Authority (KHDA) framework. It is an identification of the new factors which can contribute toward better employees’ performance and students’ achievement. A high score on these factors justifies the high standards of educational service and the low score indicates the presence of conditions disabling the school improvement efforts of schools. Initial investigation on the KHDA school’s data has indicated the inconsistent performance pattern among Dubai private schools. The presence of at least five distinct performance patterns has encouraged in conducting a study to identify the reasons which promote such inconsistent performance behavior. Three cultural factors—the sub-culture of collective leadership, sub-culture of creativity and innovation, and the sub-culture of the learning organization—were identified from the past literature, and the proposed model was examined by applying structural equation modeling techniques. Therefore, two research hypotheses that the performance of employees in good schools is better than the employees working in the struggling schools, and that the difference of the performance is due to the difference in the success factors of organizational culture in schools, were established. Findings have confirmed that school culture plays a vital role in the success of KHDA efforts of school improvement. Good Quality Schools (GQS) are successful because they can provide an environment to its employees which enables them to perform effectively, whereas the employees in Poor Quality Schools (PQS) are struggling due to the unfavorable organizational culture and work environment. The study provides valuable information to struggling schools on how to come out of the vicious circle of poor performance quality. It also highlights the importance of the preexamination of the cultural conditions in the schools before applying any systemic school improvement framework. It is recommended that extending advise and support to underperforming schools for promoting conducive cultural conditions in the school environment will help them to obtain better performance results on the KHDA inspection framework.