New DPS School to Launch in RAK in 2020
Delhi Private School (DPS), which has two DPS schools in Sharjah and one in Dubai, is to open a new DPS school in Ras Al Khaimah in April 2020. The school will be located in Al Dhait area.
Ramy Jallad, Group CEO of RAKEZ, responsible for growing the number of schools in the emirate, said the addition of DPS would "help raise the bar of educational excellence in the emirate", and add to the opportunities for RAK students.
For DPS, the aim is to take advantage of an increasing number of Indian businesses in the emirate. "Around 20 to 30 Indian companies to establish a presence in Ras Al Khaimah in the next few years, owing to the “very large investments” of these companies in the “very high” potential for industrial growth in the emirate," Dinesh Kothari, managing director of DPS Sharjah, said.
The DPS schools in the UAE are no longer affiliated with the well known and regarded Delhi Public School Society of India which operates over 200 schools worldwide. That relationship was severed by the Indian trust in 2018, as a result, it is believed, of an attempt to renegotiate license fees. The collaboration agreement had lapsed with the two schools in April 2017.
The two UAE schools are however well regarded in their own right. The Dubai school is rated Very Good by the KHDA's DSIB, the emirate's school inspectorate. It has a high satisfaction rating from its parents according to WhichSchoolAdvisor.com's DPS Dubai parent survey.
The DPS schools in Dubai and Sharjah serve around 11,000 students. That will increase by a third, to 16,000 once the RAK school reaches capacity. The DPS school in Ras Al Khaimah will initially open from KG to Grade 6. Each academic year, the new school will add one or two more grades, aiming to the reach Grade 12 in, approximately, three years following its launch. The school will be co-educational until Grade 4.
The RAK school is expected to have tuition fees between Dh11,000 to Dh12,000. This is in line with the existing DPS schools. The Dubai school has an average fee across year groups of 12,000 AED.
The school, which will be spread over a 55,000-square-metre plot of land, will have a total capacity of some 5,000 students. The school will have swimming pools for junior and senior students, football and cricket grounds and multipurpose halls.
The school has been granted a license by the UAE Ministry of Education and will seek affiliation with India’s CBSE (Central Board of Secondary Education).
