Best Schools in the UAE, 2023

The Best Schools in the UAE ranks all schools in our database that meet these criteria:

Location: United Arab Emirates
Price point: All
Phase: All

The ranking lists schools in order of their Parent Score, that is how well the score meets the expectations of this key stakeholder group represented numerically. We discuss why below. Schools not on this list, that you think should be and are missing, are likely to be as yet unrated. To be rated, a school simply needs a sufficient number of parent surveys to be undertaken. If you are a parent at one of these schools, please take the survey!

WhichSchoolAdvisor.com currently has 651 schools in its database. These are all independent, private, international schools offering a total of 54 curricula. All schools, we believe, aspire to offer the highest levels of care and performance for their students. Not all, however, are equally successful at doing so.

In this ranking, the Best Schools in the UAE, we, currently, have 164 schools competing for top spot. The total number of possible schools that could be on this list if all schools had a sufficient number of parent surveys, and all these schools had a rating of above 3.0, is 451.

Again, if your child currently attends a school in UAE, then please do review it, by taking the survey here. Your input will help 1000s of parents that follow you!

How we compile this list

When a parent completes a survey, his or her feedback is incorporated into the database and the ranking updated each Sunday. Tune in on Sunday 2nd of April just after midnight to see the changes to the Best Schools in the UAE next week!

The WSA Parent Rating is based on the following questions in the survey:

• Would you recommend your school to another parent?
• How much of a sense of belonging does your child feel at his or her school?
• To what extent do you think that children enjoy going to your child’s school?
• How much do you agree to the statement: I think the fees I pay represent good value for money given the quality of the school offering.
• Have you thought about moving your child from his current school?
• Rate your satisfaction with the level of academic performance at your child’s school
• How confident are you in your ability to make sure your child’s school meets your child’s learning needs?
• Rate your satisfaction with the level of feedback you receive from your child’s school
• How concerned are you about bullying at this school?
• How much has this school improved your child’s confidence?

The WSA algorithm

We do not disclose the weighting we use, but in order to give schools, and parents, the power to impact their score, we skew results to those most recently received. A school looking to turnaround a score can therefore make improvements, and then ask its parents to retake the survey.

If parents appreciate the changes made, it will make a difference to a school’s position on the Best Schools in the UAE list quite quickly.

Moreover, if a school has yet to send out a survey to its parents, then we would urge it to do so as soon as possible. The probability is it will make a significant difference to its score. Schools that asks their parents to take the survey, do better. Parents that are motivated to take a survey independently are often driven by high passions, which may not always be positive!

Why we do a Best School rating?

In choosing schools, parents have always used word of mouth, and the Parent survey captures this quantitatively.

Looking at the ‘Best Schools in the UAE’ should only be one way you short list schools, however. It is a fun and informative way to order schools, and by being based on Parent Rating, is a way to get a good overview quickly.

Why use the Parent Rating for Best Schools in the UAE?

In addition to capturing word of mouth recommendations numerically, we use the Parent Rating for the Best Schools in the UAE, because unlike other measures it is not country, or even area specific as government regulations can be. The parent rating cuts across both curricula, and territory, to be a measure that we can apply equally anywhere and everywhere. Parents all want the best for their child, and will be equally critical, in whatever state they are in, for whatever curricula school their child attends.

Using a rank in this way also means that each school is measured quite independently through the lens of its own parent body. In order to do well, a school ‘simply’ has to understand and then meet the expectations of its parents.

Issues with ranking this way

This way of ranking is both a weakness and a strength. It is a strength because not only can it be universally applied, but it is a true way to measure a school based on the stakeholders that matter the most, its parents.

It is a weakness in the sense that the top school on the list, will not necessarily be the best school for you and your child. It is also NOT a comment on specifics: price point, curricula, location, but an holistic view of schools that fall within a set of criteria.

Expectations will also clearly be different between the parents of different schools. For example, a parent paying premium fees would have very different expectations when it comes to the scope of facilities offered than a parent paying fees associated with the value segment. A high score for a school is not about meeting a universal set of criteria, but about it delivering on its unique promise to its unique parent body.

One size in this context does not fit all and for this reason amongst others WhichSchoolAdvisor.com always encourages parents to look beyond simple rankings and ratings, and determine the best school for your child.

WhichSchoolAdvisor.com has undertaken multiple Best ofs, allowing us to be quite specific and therefore do some of the homework for you in your shortlisting. We do have Best ofs for curricula and for some price points for example.

To go further in your analysis of the Best School for you, then you need to look at additional resources.

In the UAE, some (but not all) parents are blessed with additional resources they can use when evaluating schools. Dubai parents have access to KHDA reports, Abu Dhabi parents have access to ADEK reports, while Sharjah parents will, eventually, have access to SPEA reports. That still leaves three other emirates without government ratings. What’s more, these reports have their own criteria and their own rating grades and scales, and are not compatible enough to compare across the country in the Best of Rankings we use here. We should also note, that all government ratings, are used to drive an agenda and the UAE is no different in this regard. We note the weighting for Arabic and Islamic and Social studies in this regard, which may be of interest to some parents, but will not be to all.