"Make Schooling More Affordable" - Evolvence

CEO of Evolvence Knowledge Investments (EKI), which runs Repton School in Dubai, has said the schools in the emirate should be made more affordable.

In an interview to Gulf News, CEO Nitin Kripalani stated that pricey schools should be made affordable for parents in the UAE to focus solely on quality when choosing a school

EKI has majority shares in Repton – one of Dubai’s most expensive schools. The school announced it was seeking a tuition fee reduction late last year. See the WSA story here.

He said: “Taking out the price point from the decision-making equation for parents helps schools as well, by making them more attractive than competitors.”

KHDA rated Repton School Dubai ‘Outstanding’ in 2017, yet the school announced a reduction of 10% in senior school tuition fees on average for the 2018-19 cycle, which starts in September.

According to the reduction, the annual fees for say Year 7 will drop from AED83,600 to AED75,000 in 2018 September. While the fees for Year 13 will be AED95,000 as compared to AED103,300.

The school will also be freezing its junior school fees.

Foremarke School Dubai, also run by EKI, has also reduced its fee by 10% for the 2018-19 academic year. The new fees will range from AED58,500 for FS 1 to AED76,500 for Year 6 at the school, rated ‘Good’ by the KHDA.

About 160 schools were eligible by Dubai authorities to increase fees, however more than 20 decided to stay the course and freeze fees in the 2017-18 academic year.

Kripalani described EKI’s move to decrease fees at Repton and Foremarke in Dubai, as a “large, strategic decision” aimed at multiple fronts.

“I think it’s reflecting of the current economic market. I’m not sure if, across the city, salaries are increasing at the same pace at which school fees have been increasing. So school fees had become a bone of contention and an affordability issue, and that is what we have addressed. We did an analysis between our [senior school] and the competition, and we saw that we were around 10% higher than our competition.”

He added: “We strongly believe the quality of the academic provision at our schools is second to none, so we wanted to take the price decision out of the equation — we wanted parents to make a decision based on quality, not on price.”

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