Future Looks Brighter For Dubai's Cheapest School

When the Sheikh Rashid Al Maktoum Pakistani School in Al Qusais hit the headlines in February, it was for all the wrong reasons.

With a building in urgent need of repair, low teacher salaries and a serious lack of resources- the KHDA inspection team found the school to be 'Unsatisfactory.'

According to outgoing principal Dr Abdur Bangash, the school's troubles were further compounded by the fact that many parents just couldn't hope to meet the school fees and were defaulting on payments, often incurring debts of tens of thousands of Dihrams.

At the time, Bangash remained adamant that the education of any students accruing debt would not be affected. However, he did point out that the shortfall was creating a significant cash-flow problem for the school.

But, just a few months on, and things are looking considerably brighter for the school. The Pakistan Consulate has begun renovations on the building as well as, increasing teachers' salaries by 15 percent.

New technology too, is coming, with the promise of tablets for pupils and teachers in the coming months.

New principal Ahktar Waqqas said, "The KHDA gave us a list of about 14 things we needed to fix regarding the maintenance and, over the last month or so, we have been working to get everything done."

Major repair work has begun on issues documented in the  KHDA inspection report, although more minor smaller issues are being remedied too. "We also had numerous smaller things to sort out, including fixing lighting and although the vast majority of the work has been done we are just finishing up the last few remaining bits," said Waqqas.

Waqqas hopes that the renovations and salary increases will improve moral. “Many of the teaching staff were on between Dh2,300 and Dh3,800 a month and I felt it was vital they got better salaries.”

He went on to say, “I am very confident that we will begin to see improvements over the coming months.”