RAND study finds Qatar successfully implements redesign of education system

By the fall of 2004, the Education Institute opened 12 independent schools, which were selected from a pool of 160 applicants. In 2005, 21 additional independent schools opened, and last year, 13 more opened. Today, there are about 46 independent schools; parents also can opt to send their children to private schools or Ministry of Education schools.

Although Qatar's K-12 education system has made a great deal of progress, the RAND team, which continues to work with the Qatari government and offer advice on the education reform program, has four recommendations to strengthen the reforms:

• Increase the number of Qatari teachers trained according to the curriculum standards as well as Institute staff who are trained to manage the reforms.
  
  

• Continue to promote the basic principles of the reforms: autonomy, accountability, variety and choice.
  
  

• Expand the number of high-quality schools with the best-qualified operators regardless of nationality.
  
  

• Integrate education policy with broader social policies. For example, the Qatari civil service system provides ample job security, but doesn't contain enough incentives to encourage teachers to strive for excellence.
  
  

Goldman said the Qatari education reforms also can serve as an example to educators in the United States and other countries that schools and the institutions that support them can be dramatically restructured in a relatively short period of time. The keys to success, he said, are agreeing on a clear set of guiding principles, planning implementation in advance, and then sticking closely to the principles through the implementation.

Other authors of the study are: Catherine H. Augustine, Gail L. Zellman, Gery Ryan, Cathleen Stasz, and Louay Constant, all of RAND; and Dominic J. Brewer, formerly of RAND and now professor of education, economics and policy at the Rossier School of Education at the University of Southern California.

RAND Education conducts research and analysis on a variety of topics, including school reform, educational assessment and accountability, and trends among teachers and teacher training.

Copies of the report, "Education for a New Era: Design and Implementation of K-12 Education Reform in Qatar," can be found on the RAND Web site at www.rand.org.

The RAND Corporation is a nonprofit research organization providing objective analysis and effective solutions that address the challenges facing the public and private sectors around the world. To sign up for RAND e-mail alerts: http://www.rand.org/publications/email.html