Guides · KHDA ratings
What KHDA ratings mean
KHDA rates Dubai’s private schools on six levels, from Outstanding to Very weak. Today (24 September 2026), 207 of Dubai’s 228 open schools hold a KHDA rating: 23 Outstanding, 47 Very good, 85 Good and 52 Acceptable, and none is rated Weak or Very weak. 21 hold no six-level rating yet (not yet inspected, or an older four-level report).
Counts from KHDA’s inspection reports and Education Directory; the data was last checked on 24 September 2026.
The six levels
The UAE School Inspection Framework, which KHDA’s inspectors use in Dubai, defines each level in one line. Here they are in its own words, best first.
The six KHDA levels and what the inspection framework says each one means
| Level | What the framework says |
|---|---|
| «Quality of performance substantially exceeds the expectation of the UAE» | |
| «Quality of performance exceeds the expectation of the UAE» | |
| «Quality of performance meets the expectation of the UAE»«This is the expected level for every school in the UAE» | |
| «Quality of performance meets the minimum level of quality required in the UAE»«This is the minimum level for every school in the UAE» | |
| «Quality of performance is below the expectation of the UAE» | |
| «Quality of performance is significantly below the expectation of the UAE» |
A school with no six-level rating has no level: it is not yet inspected, or its only report used an older four-level scale. This site never counts it as weak. Today 21 of Dubai’s 228 open schools hold no six-level rating yet.
Good is expected, Acceptable is the minimum
The framework calls Good the expected level for every school in the UAE, and Acceptable the minimum. Very good and Outstanding go beyond what is expected; Weak and Very weak fall below the minimum.
Today 155 of the 207 rated schools are Good or better and 52 are Acceptable. None is rated Weak or Very weak.
An overall rating is not an average. Inspectors judge 17 parts of a school’s work, from what students achieve to how the school is led, and then choose the level that matches them most closely:
«Using the matrix in this framework, schools and inspection teams consider the evaluations made for the 17 performance indicators and determine the closest match in order to agree the ‘Overall Performance Judgement’ for the school.»
Source UAE School Inspection Framework 2015–16, p. 18 (opens in a new tab)
The rating’s year matters
A rating is the word from a school’s latest KHDA inspection report, and it stays until the next report. KHDA did not inspect schools in 2020–21 and inspected only a few in 2021–22. It carried out no full inspections in 2024–25 or 2025–26, except for schools in their third year.
So today 197 of the 207 rated schools hold a rating from 2023–24. Every rating on this site stands with the year of its report, so you can see how old it is.
«Dubai’s Knowledge and Human Development Authority (KHDA) has announced that no inspections will be conducted for Dubai private schools during the 2025-26 academic year.»
«The second is a shorter monitoring visit conducted by a smaller team of visiting experts, focusing on specific audit trails and key lines of enquiry identified through data analysis. Following the visit, schools will receive a concise report outlining strengths and recommendations for improvement, but no new overall inspection rating will be issued.»
Source KHDA news, 16 May 2025 (opens in a new tab) · KHDA news, 3 June 2026 (opens in a new tab)
KHDA's visits resume in 2026–27. A full inspection brings a new rating; a shorter monitoring visit does not. KHDA inspections are back explains what changes.
Wellbeing and inclusion: two more ratings
Beside the overall rating, KHDA’s directory gives an inspected school two ratings of Dubai’s own: one for wellbeing and one for inclusion. They are not part of the UAE framework.
Inclusion uses the same six levels. Wellbeing has used them since the 2023–24 reports; the 2021–22 and 2022–23 reports described wellbeing in words of their own, such as High or Moderate, which do not match the six levels. This site shows those words as the report prints them.
How to read a report
Each school page on this site opens with its rating and the year of the report it comes from. Its Inspection section shows the report’s ratings for teaching, assessment, curriculum, safeguarding and leadership, each with the page of the report it is printed on.
The Sources section of a school page opens the Full Inspection Report on KHDA’s website, where you can read the inspectors’ own words. Find a school in the list of all schools.
Questions families ask
Is Acceptable a bad rating?
It is not a failing rating. Acceptable is the minimum level of quality the UAE requires, one step below Good, which is the level expected of every school. Today 52 of the 207 rated schools are Acceptable.
«This is the minimum level for every school in the UAE»
Source UAE School Inspection Framework 2015–16, p. 19 (opens in a new tab)
Why is the rating from 2023–24?
Because there has been no full inspection since. KHDA carried out no full inspections in 2024–25 or 2025–26, except for schools in their third year, so a school keeps the rating of its last report. Today 197 of the 207 rated schools hold a rating from 2023–24.
Source KHDA news, 16 May 2025 (opens in a new tab) · KHDA news, 3 June 2026 (opens in a new tab)
What does Not yet inspected mean?
KHDA has not yet given the school an overall rating, usually because the school is new. It is not a low rating, and this site never counts it as one. Today 21 of Dubai’s 228 open schools hold no six-level rating yet (not yet inspected, or an older four-level report). Even during the pause, schools in their third year were given a full inspection:
«applies to all private schools, except for those in their third year of operation, who will be subject to a full inspection.»
Do fees follow ratings?
Only in part. Each year KHDA sets how much a private school may raise its fees, and in some years a better or improved rating allowed a larger rise. For 2025–26 the limit was KHDA’s Education Cost Index, and for 2026–27 no private school may raise its fees. Fee rises, year by year gives the rule for each year. A rating says nothing about what a school charges: for that, see the cost of a whole school.
«Eligible for-profit schools may apply for an increase up to, but not exceeding, the approved ECI.»
«the Knowledge and Human Development Authority (KHDA) has confirmed that there will be no increase in school fees for private schools in the emirate for the 2026-27 academic year.»
Source KHDA news, 2 May 2025 (opens in a new tab) · KHDA news, 22 May 2026 (opens in a new tab)
Sources
- UAE School Inspection Framework, 2015–16 edition, published by KHDA (opens in a new tab)Page 19: the six levels, Good as the expected level and Acceptable as the minimum. Page 18: how the overall rating is reached.
- KHDA Education Directory (opens in a new tab)Each school’s overall, wellbeing and inclusion ratings.
- KHDA to resume quality assurance visits for Dubai private schools (opens in a new tab)KHDA news, 3 June 2026. KHDA's visits resume in 2026–27. A full inspection brings a new rating; a shorter monitoring visit does not.
- KHDA announces pause on school inspections for 2025-26 academic year (opens in a new tab)KHDA news, 16 May 2025: no inspections in 2025–26, except for schools in their third year.
- Ratings by level on Market StatisticsOur counts from KHDA’s inspection reports and Education Directory, checked 24 September 2026.
Every sentence in quotation marks on this page was checked word for word against its document on 24 September 2026.