UAE student grades to undergo four levels of review under new assessment policy

Dubai: The UAE's Ministry of Education has implemented a new assessment policy for the 2026-2027 academic year, requiring student grades to undergo a four-tiered review process. This policy aims to enhance the accuracy, fairness, and consistency of grading by involving multiple levels of oversight and quality control. Initially, teachers at the classroom level are responsible for grading, followed by the school principal, the school cluster director, and finally, the General Education Examinations and Assessment Department at the system level.

By distributing responsibility for grading quality, the system seeks to prevent grades from being influenced solely by an individual teacher or school, and to detect discrepancies in how student performance is evaluated across different classrooms and schools. The Ministry's assessment guidance outlines grade moderation as a crucial quality assurance measure, necessitating comprehensive reviews of all grades and subjects across schools.

In addition to grading checks, teachers will engage in professional discussions to establish a common understanding of assessment criteria, while their marking results will be compared to identify variations and enhance consistency in awarding grades. School administrations are tasked with organizing regular grade-moderation sessions, which formalize the process of teachers reviewing assessment practices, discussing marking standards, and ensuring students' work is judged consistently.

The policy extends beyond the school level, with School Operations Sector teams coordinating field visits to schools within the same cluster to verify that comparable standards of quality, accuracy, and fairness are being applied consistently. By progressively distributing responsibility for grading quality from the classroom to the school, then to the cluster, and ultimately to the wider education system, this four-stage structure aims to bolster the credibility of student grades and identify and address variations in assessment before they become entrenched in results.