Schools, fees and failures

Schools in Dubai have been praised and shamed in the first round of official inspections by the emirate's education authority – paving the way for the next round of tuition fees.

Some 69 of the emirate's 220 schools underwent three- to five-day assessments between October and December last year with the results published by the Knowledge and Human Development Authority (KHDA) yesterday.

They named four schools – Jumeirah College, both branches of Jumeirah English Speaking School (Jess) and Kings Dubai – as outstanding while six were deemed unsatisfactory or failing. The remaining schools were ranked either good or satisfactory by a team of 3,000 internationally qualified inspectors.

Now all schools have the ability to raise fees between seven and 15 per cent for the next school year, depending on their grading. Currently, fees range from about Dh20,000 a year for kindergarten up to Dh92,000 for grade 12.

However, Dr Abdulla Al Karam, Director-General and Chairman of KHDA, said: "I strongly discourage any school from raising its fees next year. But if they have to do it, tie it to quality."

Although the outstanding schools have a 15 per cent cap, there is no guarantee prices will increase to such an extent – and they must apply to KHDA for approval first.

"Schools have to justify why we should give them such a rise," Al Karam said.

Despite the criticism of the six unsatisfactory private schools, they will still be able to raise their fees by up to seven per cent but they will be under constant scrutiny to raise standards, including inspections every three months. If institutes continue to fail, they face the possibility of being closed.

Schools are currently faced with the twin pressures of rising costs and falling student rolls, as many have chosen to leave the Emirates after losing their jobs.

Many schools questioned by Emirates Business said they still had places available for the coming academic year, but most were confident they would be filled by the time the term starts in September. One principal, whose school was rated 'good', said it had to be careful when setting fees so as not to deter current or potential parents from enrolling their children.

"Under the current economic circumstances, it would make sense for schools not to raise fees because some people are struggling to make ends meet," he said, speaking on condition of anonymity.

"There's a possibility that people will leave but the other consideration is what kind of education they will get if they return home. If you compare the UAE to UK private education, for example, we are quite competitive – a lot of good English schools cost 30 to 40 per cent more than Dubai.

"We are, however, making contingencies for if we lose pupils but we don't see that happening," he said.

Clive Pierrepont, Director of Communications and Marketing at private educator Taaleem, said: "We consider that even with a moderate rise in fees, our schools will be very good value for money.

"We have spoken to a lot of parents who are agonised over a return to their home country. In general there continues to be optimism among the majority.

"The reasons they bought families out here are the ones keeping them here as long as they continue to have a positive view of the future.

"Many do not relish the return to what for example might be a limited choice of state schools in the UK realising that benchmarked standards in private schools here are generally higher than found in UK state schools."

The KHDA's Al Karam said: "There is concern about the rising costs of education and we too are concerned."

One argument why schools had achieved the top bracket was due to their history – all have been established for more than 10 years and have had time to hone teaching practices, which were at the heart of inspectors' observations.

Jess Stokoe, Director of Jess's two sites in Jumeirah and Arabian Ranches, said he was thrilled at the outcome of the inspection.

He said it was a testament to the hard work of the staff – but insisted they would not rest on their laurels because the KHDA had informed schools the quality bar would be raised for the next inspection in 12 to 18 months.

Stokoe said: "We always look at inspections as a vehicle for the schools to improve. It's good to see where the school is and balance how we measure up to our expectations."

At the moment, the school does not foresee any problems with student numbers next year, even though the board is in discussions about how much to raise fees by.

The school still has vacancies in the secondary school but the primary school is oversubscribed by more than 1,000 pupils. However, they are unable to obtain funding to open another campus as they had planned.

Taaleem had three of its five Dubai schools assessed, with two – Al Mizhar American Academy for Girls and Greenfield Community School – receiving a good rating, and one – Dubai British School – being acceptable.

While they welcomed the procedure, staff have raised concerns about the level of expertise inspectors have for the International Baccalaureate (IB) programme, which is gaining in popularity.

"We found the inspection to be conducted very professionally and the team members were approachable and thorough," said Dr Lesley Stagg, Principal of Greenfield Community School.

"They were not necessarily familiar with the IB programme and methodology but were open-minded and interested to learn."

However, not all companies were happy about the inspections. Richard Forbes, Director of Communications and Marketing at Gems, which had seven schools assessed, said: "We respect the KHDA initiative of inspections in order to provide a school rating classification based on quality. However, Gems does not agree with the policy of aligning fee increases with the inspection results.

"At present schools that are rated outstanding are able to increase fees by up to 15 per cent, yet those schools rated unsatisfactory can only increase fees by up to seven per cent.

"We believe this approach is counterproductive because it is the lower performing schools that require the most support and therefore the highest increase in order to improve the quality of their education, not the other way round."

Some 24 public schools, or 30 per cent, and 45 private schools of the 144 in Dubai make up the results.

Despite the fact all unsatisfactory schools were private, Al Karam said it is too early to draw conclusions about the difference in standards.

"We don't want to compare public and private schools," he said. "It will be an eye-opener when the full report is released in May. There are three types of public schools and I'm not sure finances are the only benchmark – leadership will be the one that makes the difference if they have the same curriculum."

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