'87 Per Cent of School Places in Dubai Utilised' - KHDA

This KHDA has released their latest figures on private school education for the academic year 2014/15. And, while there are no great surprises the infographic does show continued growth across the board for both schools and curricula.

The agency notes there are currently 169 private schools with 255,208 students, an enrollment growth of 4.7 percent on last year.

Over the past three years 26 new schools opened, 11 of these launching in the past year alone, offering Dubai's parents just over 37,000 new school seats. In total, 87 percent of school places throughout Dubai are utilised.

There's bad news for parents looking for places in middle schools and kindergartens as both are currently working at the highest capacity, (around 90%) and are still exceedingly difficult to find places. Kindergartens remain busy due to the majority of new expats being young families, while middle school places fill as families await the opening of new schools. However, primary and high schools do offer slightly less competition for places, with 88 percent and 85 percent of seats taken respectively.

However, the capacity figures above are certainly not the whole picture. For parents, finding a school place gets tougher according to how well a school is ranked by the KHDA. The breakdown is as follows: across 'Outstanding' schools there's only 1.5 percent of seats available, 'Good' schools have only 4.7 percent available and 'Acceptable' schools 9.1 percent, however, many less desirable places at 'Unsatisfactory' schools and those currently unrated are available.

Places at not-for-profit schools once again remain slightly more sought-after than those in the 'for-profit' schools with a six percent lead on seat occupancy.

The IB programme remains the most popular system across Dubai with 93.3 percent of seats utilised, however, with only seven schools and three percent of the student body, there's very obviously a need for further IB schools to open in the near future.

Indian schools have a 88.6 percent student occupancy and attract 31 percent of the student body while offering 31 schools across the Emirate.

The British curriculum offers the most schools (65) and the largest student body (33% of total students in Dubai) although occupancy is slightly lower with 87.5 percent of seats taken.

The American curriculum has proved to be less popular this year. Although offering 31 schools, (the same number of schools as the Indian curriculum) only 18 percent of Dubai's student body chose the curriculum and occupancy is the lowest of 'The Big Four' at 86.1 percent.

Throughout Dubai annual school fees raise a collective Dhs5.35 billion. School fees range from Dhs1,725 to Dhs98,649.