The opening of a new school yesterday was especially momentous for the Habeeb family.
For more than a year Shemy Habeeb has been living in India with her son and daughter while her husband Ashiq stayed in Dubai because they were unable to find a suitable school to place the nursery-aged Fathima.
"Last year I was looking for a school for my daughter and I didn’t get any nearby locality," said Mr Habeeb, a 34-year-old Indian who lives in Al Quoz 4.
One school was available but their daughter would have had to spend nearly an hour on the bus. Another school offered a placement but its tuition fees were too high, Mr Habeeb said.
"I decided to send her back to India," he said. "Education is the most important for our kids."
This year he was finally able to bring his wife, four-year-old Fathima and three-year-old son Habeeb Ashiq back to Dubai thanks to the opening of a school in his neighbourhood. The Minister of Education, Humaid Mohammed Obeid Al Qattami, Knowledge and Human Development Authority director general Dr Abdulla Al Karam and Indian ambassador TP Seetharam were among the dignitaries to formally open Credence High School in a ribbon-cutting ceremony.
The Indian-curriculum school is welcoming pupils from KG1 to Grade 6, with the intention of adding a higher grade each consecutive year. More than 250 children have already enrolled at the school, which can accommodate up to 1,500 pupils. Annual tuition fees range from Dh15,000 for KG1 up to Dh26,000 for Grade 12.
"I’m happy that the school is opening right away because there is a huge demand within the Indian community and generally from among all expatriates living in the UAE for good-quality education, and the highest demand is for admission to kindergarten," said Mr Seetharam.
"That’s partly because there is this huge, young professional community who have just had their children in recent years and who are ready to go to considerable extents to find good-quality education for their children."
KHDA, the private schools regulator in Dubai, maintained there were enough classroom seats to accommodate all pupils in the emirate.
"Seats in Dubai are not scarce - there are enough places for every child," said Abdulrahman Nassir, the authority’s chief of customer relations. "Waiting lists exist because parents wish to get their children a seat at a particular school."
Mr Nassir said 10 schools have opened this academic year, making room for 22,070 pupils. The new schools include four with Indian-curriculum, four that are British curriculum, one International Baccalaureate and one French/IB.
Another seven schools - five British, one Canadian and one Indian curriculum – are due to open by the start of the next academic year, offering pupils an additional 17,700 seats.
Seven more have plans to open for the 2015-2016 academic year, with room for about 10,000 more pupils.
"It is not as it has been stated," Dr Al Karam said of the reported waiting lists. "There are waiting lists for certain schools that are more of the outstanding schools and usually the non-profit schools but their percentages are smaller in terms of the whole system.
"A lot of it is also created by … as people move into Dubai, the first thing they go and look and they check the rating of the schools and they always want to go to the outstanding schools.
"But outstanding schools, they have policies for siblings, which is a very fair policy. The second thing, there are people living in Dubai, and as they give birth, they register on the list."
Both Dr Al Karam and Mr Nassir advised parents to consider enrolling their children in one of the many newschools scheduled to open.
"There are many new schools opening in Dubai, all of which meet stringent criteria specified by KHDA," said Mr Nassir.
"By 2020, we expect 110 new or expanded schools to have opened their doors, providing space for 360,000 students."
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