Dubai needs more schools to meet demands: KHDA

Dubai’s supply of schools needs to increase as the number of students continues to rise at a rate of 7% each year, a government official has told Gulf News.

“Dubai’s student population has increased at a long-term growth rate of seven per cent average per year over the past ten years. If this trend continues, then the student population in Dubai will double over the next ten years,’ said Mohammad Darwish, Chief of Regulations and Permits Commission, Knowledge and Human Development Authority (KHDA).

The KHDA announce nine new schools for the academic year 2013-14, four of which offer Indian curriculum, four offer British curriculum and one offers French/IB curriculum. With these nine additions, the number of private schools in Dubai totals up to 159.

However, the new schools, which have a combined capacity of 20,000 students, do not match the ratio of increasing growth of Dubai’s student population, Darwish said.

According to data, demand for places at Indian and UK schools is the highest.

“The KHDA encourages investment by the private sector to meet the demand for growth in the Dubai student population. The two areas of highest demand based on our analysis of waiting list data are for places at Indian and UK curriculum schools,” Darwish added.

FEE INCREASE

Darwish said that KHDA received 31 applications from schools across Dubai to increase fees.

“Out of the schools that applied for fee increases, 14 were not considered as they were not in line with the fee framework, 12 fee increase requests from non-profit/embassy schools were approved — seven of whom got initial approval in the last academic year 2012-13 with their increase spread over three or four years.”