27 New Dubai Schools - in the Next 12 Months!
Following the news earlier this week that the UAE currently boasts the highest number of English language international schools in the world, the KHDA has announced an additional 63,000 seats in 27 new private schools by September 2016.
For a sense of scale, eleven new schools opened for the 2014/15 academic year.
Chief of Regulations & Permits Commission (RPC), Mohammed Ahmed Darwish, confirmed: “there will be an expected total of 27 new private schools by September 2016, bringing the total estimated capacity to 63,000 seats."
Furthermore, the KHDA expects this positive trend to continue, with a total of more than 196 private schools and a capacity to teach more than 341,000 students across the Emirate by 2017.
The agency acknowledges this 'investor confidence' is primarily attributed to the city's successful bid for Expo 2020 and the continued increase in Dubai's population- noting it is currently in the process of reviewing more than 60 applications for new private schools in Dubai.
Darwish went on to state, “this creates competitiveness among the new private schools within Dubai. Private schools then present special packages and promotional offers to attract parents of new and existing students and to occupy the highest rate of seats available.
"The offers include attractive instalment packages and discounts for families which have more than one child in the same school. As a result, parents benefit from the competition created amongst private schools in Dubai.”
Executive Director of Education Development, Kalthoom Al Balooshi said in the statement, "in order to establish the best available educational opportunities for Dubai’s private education sector, we used a variety of channels to communicate with more than 200 investors and education providers inside and outside of the UAE. This has helped in obtaining international school branches within Dubai and once again, adds to the choice of curriculums for parents to choose from."
Al Balooshi went on to note, “we also encourage the good and outstanding schools to expand within the Emirate by opening new branches, at the same time attracting good-quality schools from other Emirates to establish branches in Dubai.”
