Dubai’s private schools will not face official inspections during the 2025–26 academic year, the Knowledge and Human Development Authority (KHDA) has announced.

The decision applies to all private schools in the emirate, except those in their third year of operation, which will still go through a full inspection.

KHDA said the move is part of a new approach to improving education, allowing schools to focus more on collaboration, reflection, and ongoing development.

While there won’t be full inspections, targeted visits will continue. These will focus on specific areas related to education quality and will be guided by feedback from parents, students, and teachers, as well as the goals of the Education 33 strategy.

“Dubai’s private schools have shown great resilience, innovation, and care for students,” said Fatma Ibrahim Belrehif, CEO of the Education Quality Assurance and Compliance Agency at KHDA.

“This break from inspections gives us a chance to rethink how we define and support quality education.”

Schools will still be required to carry out external benchmark assessments to measure student progress. They will also continue submitting regular updates through their self-evaluation forms (SEF).

KHDA said these steps will help ensure that education remains high-quality and aligned with national goals, even without formal inspections for a year.

The Central Board of Secondary Education (CBSE) announced the Grade 10 results on Tuesday, just hours after the Class 12 scores were released.

Students can check their results on the following official websites: cbse.gov.in, cbseresults.nic.in, and results.cbse.nic.in.

This year, Grade 10 students achieved a pass rate of 93.6%, marking a slight increase of 0.06% compared to last year. As with the Grade 12 results, girls outperformed boys by more than 2.37 percentage points, with 95% of girls passing the exam, according to reports.

For the 2024-25 academic year, CBSE has introduced changes in the assessment and evaluation pattern for both Grade 10 and Grade 12. The new system places more emphasis on competency-based questions in the theory exams.

This year, more than 4.4 million students appeared for the CBSE exams, with approximately 2.41 million students in Class 10 and 1.79 million in Class 12.

In terms of overall performance, the pass percentage stands at 88.39%, a modest increase from last year.

Exam controller Sanyam Bhardwaj noted that girls outshone boys by over 5 percentage points in the CBSE Class 12 exams, according to Indian media reports.

GEMS Education has appointed top international educator James Monaghan as the CEO and founding principal of the GEMS School of Research and Innovation (SRI), set to be Dubai’s most expensive school, with annual fees reaching up to Dh206,000.

Monaghan, who has over 30 years of global education leadership experience across the UAE, UK, USA, and South Korea, previously led North London Collegiate School in both Dubai and Jeju, South Korea.

His appointment marks a major step for SRI, a new Dh367 million school in Dubai Sports City that promises to deliver next-level education with cutting-edge AI and innovation at its core.

Calling the role a “defining moment” in his career, Monaghan said he looks forward to building an inclusive school where creativity, innovation, and excellence are at the heart of learning.

The premium British-curriculum school, described by GEMS as “one of the finest in the world,” will open in August 2025.

The campus boasts world-class amenities designed to bring the learning experience to life, including:

• Specialist robotics and science laboratories.
• A 600-seat auditorium.
• Olympic-sized swimming pool.
• AR and VR-enabled learning centres.

SRI students will also be the first to benefit from the $1 million ‘Next Billion Innovation’ start-up fund, aimed at helping GEMS students create impactful solutions with global reach.