Applied Technology Schools - Abu Dhabi Girls
Abu Dhabi, UAE · StateApplied Technology Schools is the state network of technical schools of the UAE, run by the Institute of Applied Technology; as of September 2026 the network holds thirteen campuses across six emirates. Teaching here covers the senior years only - grade 9 to grade 12 - and from grade 6 at the Al Ain, Al Dhafra and Abu Dhabi Girls campuses. A leaver receives two documents rather than one: the High School Certificate and a level 3 certificate of the National Qualifications Centre in their cluster. There are three streams: the Advanced Science Program - selected high achievers, mathematics and science with inquiry-based laboratory work, running from grade 9 to grade 12 alongside UAE universities including Khalifa University and aiming at direct admission - the Advanced stream and the General stream. Every subject is taught in English except Arabic, Islamic education and social studies, and the network says so plainly. Subjects fall into three groups: general, core and the specialist ones of the chosen cluster. The Abu Dhabi girls' campus is one of the three in the network where the stages begin at grade 6 rather than grade 9; the other two are in Al Ain and in Al Dhafra. The campus publishes five telephone numbers, with a mobile listed separately.
Key facts
Accreditations and programmes verified against official registries
Cognia · accreditationCollege Board · authorised programmeWhat stands behind each entry
The widest-reaching American accreditation: some forty thousand schools in over a hundred countries. It accredits both individual schools and whole school systems. It also sells a paid membership with no inspection behind it, and that membership is often passed off as accreditation.
What the badge means for this school. The school has been through this organisation's accreditation. It was judged as a whole: governance, safeguarding, staff, premises, teaching. The entry stands in the organisation's public register - anyone can check it.
Register to check for yourself, and the full guide →An American organisation that allows a school to put the letters AP on a pupil's transcript. The permission is granted course by course and tied to a particular teacher, it has to be renewed every year, and College Board reads the course syllabus before granting it.
What the badge means for this school. The school is allowed to run advanced AP courses - not the school as a whole, but one by one: by subject and by teacher. Governance, safeguarding and the primary years are not part of that check. Which subjects are actually approved is visible in the ledger. The entry stands in the organisation's public register - anyone can check it. Authorisation here runs a year at a time: the register lists the school for the 2025-2026 school year.
Register to check for yourself, and the full guide →Advanced Placement: American advanced courses for the senior years. The exam for a course is set and marked by the College Board, not by the school. A good result is counted by American universities as a first-year course already passed, which saves a student time and money.
What this means for this school. A school does not get to call a course AP automatically: the College Board reads the course syllabus and approves it separately for every subject and every teacher, and the permission has to be renewed each year. Every approved school in the world is listed in the open AP Course Ledger, and this school's entry there stands as a line in the accreditation block above. How many courses a school is approved for, and in which subjects, the ledger does not show in its general listing. AP has no leaving certificate of its own: it sits on top of the school's main programme rather than being a separate system.
The state school programme of the country the school stands in: it is set by that country's ministry of education, which also licenses the school and awards the leaving certificate. That certificate is used for entry to local universities, and abroad it is matched to the local one.
What this means for this school. This entry does not count towards the score, and that is deliberate. Every lawful school in a country works to the national programme, so on its own it tells one school apart from no other - unlike the French, German or Russian programmes, which are carried abroad and confirmed by the register of their organisation. We show it because a parent needs to know what programme their child is taught and what certificate the child will get. Counting it would lift the whole ranking at once and still tell nobody apart.