About 81 per cent of private schools and 68 per cent of government schools have been ranked as only satisfactory or inadequate by Bahrain's education watchdog.

The National Authority of Qualifications and Quality Assurance for Education and Training (QQA) released details of its assessment of 186 public schools and 53 of 62 private schools in its sixth annual Academic Report, which was released under the theme 'With Partnership We Progress,’ said a report in the Gulf Daily News (GDN), our sister publication.

It ranked educational institutes on a four point system; excellent, good, satisfactory and inadequate.

"The QQA reviewed an additional 73 public schools last year bringing the total number of public schools that underwent assessment to 186," the QQA said in a statement yesterday.

"Thirty-two per cent of them were rated between excellent or good.

"The QQA also reviewed 53 private schools of a total 62, of which 19pc were rated between excellent or good."

However, it did not specify the reasons behind the schools scoring such low results. The authority reviewed 73 training institutes in the country, 36 per cent of which improved in standards by just one point.

It also ranked 11 higher education courses from different colleges as "untrustworthy".

"Since 2011 the QQA reviewed 33 academic courses provided by 12 colleges in the fields of medicine, health science, information technology and business management," said the report.

"Nineteen of 33 were rated trustworthy, three were rated as having limited trust and 11 were rated as untrustworthy."

The report also marked the introduction of English language examinations as part of government schools' national exams. "For the first time year three students sat their national English exams," it stated.

"A total of 10,008 students in secondary public schools took their national exams in Arabic in addition to nine private schools who took part optionally." - TradeArabia News Service