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29 March 2024

Parents cry foul over rising cost of education

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By Staff

Education has become more expensive this year in Dubai, despite the fact that no school has announced any fee hike.

From transport fee, to stationary, uniform and books, parents are crying foul as they are forced to shell out more year after year, and this year is no exception, Gulf News reported.

Some parents were shocked as the transport operators announced a 10 per cent hike in fees.

As though this was not enough, parents allege that many schools resort to manipulation to fleece more from parents and the tricks they resort to are frequent changes in books and uniforms.

"It was a shock for me when I went to the school today and learnt about Dh250 annual hike in bus fee. As I have two kids, it means an additional Dh500 increase. We were not informed about this increase earlier," said an anguished parent, whose children study in an American school.

Another parent, who three children go to school, said that the school keeps changing text books and reprinting the same books in different style to charge more money.

"The school changed the text books for a few subjects like science and maths. However, when I saw the new books, I found that they covered the same topics. The new books are more expensive. For instance, the grade five science book that was priced at Dh75 with six topics, has been split into six books this year, each covering one topic, and the cost will come to Dh282. This is for one subject; the overall cost for text books per child for me has risen three times. It is unexpected and also an unnecessary burden on the parents," he said.

For some parents new uniforms will put an additional burden. "We buy uniforms at the start of the year and keep buying during the year too. However, now that the school has changed the uniform, I cannot use the sets which my son already has. The school has also changed the PE uniform," another parent said.

While a lot of outlets have launched promotions for stationery, a comparison of prices showed an increase of about 10 per cent.

"Stationery prices have increased by 10-15 per cent," said a book shop owner, on condition of anonymity.