DubaiSchools.ai parent data guide

Published 1 November 2026 · Analysis of the DubaiSchools.ai school dataset

Dubai Schools Since 2008: Good-or-Better Went From 38% to 75%

In 2008, KHDA published its first round of school inspections. Of the 94 schools in today’s index that were rated that year, 38% were Good or better. Today, across 217 rated schools, the figure is 75%. That is the headline. The more interesting story is in how it happened, and in the one big caveat that comes with it.

A steady climb, not a jump

There is no single year when Dubai’s schools suddenly got better. The share rises at every two-year snapshot from 2008 to 2024, a few points at a time, and it has levelled off at around 75% since 2024. Weak ratings, which once applied to 10 schools, are now gone from the current list entirely. Outstanding has grown from 4 schools to 23. The rating scale changed in 2015, when “Very good” was added and “Unsatisfactory” became “Weak”, but the Good-or-better line is comparable across that change.

Follow the same schools, and the trend holds

A rising average can simply mean better new schools joining the list. To check, we followed the 113 schools that were already rated in 2008 or 2009 and compared their first rating with their rating today.

71 of these schools started out Acceptable or worse. 48 of them are now Good or better. 30 have climbed two or more bands. And all 4 schools rated Outstanding in that first cycle are still Outstanding today. The improvement is not only new arrivals raising the average. Schools that were already open got better.

What this means when you choose

The practical lesson is that a rating is a point on a trajectory. A school that has moved from Acceptable to Good in recent cycles is in a different position from one that has sat at Good for fifteen years. Both carry the same word on the label. Each school page on DubaiSchools.ai shows the full rating journey, so you can see which kind of Good you are looking at.

Sources and method

Inspection histories and current ratings come from KHDA data in DubaiSchools.ai’s open dataset. For each year shown, a school counts with its most recent rating at the end of that year; schools not yet rated by then are excluded. “Today” uses the current KHDA rating. Pre-2015 “Unsatisfactory” ratings are treated as Weak. Non-ratings such as “First Inspection” and “Not yet inspected” are ignored. The cohort includes schools whose first recorded rating is from 2008 or 2009 and which hold a current rating. See the methodology.