Abu Dhabi Education Council (Adec) is keen to keep harmony between the private school fees and the quality of the educational services provided to students so there would be no exaggerated rises in fees from some schools, asserted Youssef Al Sheryani, Executive Director of the Private Education and Quality Assurance Sector.
Schools need to be given an opportunity to improve and enhance their service levels, with all the expenses required whether to modify the school building, to add new educational services such as science/technology labs or to provide other instructional media, in addition to the improvement of the teachers financial remuneration and hiring qualified and competent staff.The goal is to provide better education for the students and reach the parents and community satisfaction, he added in a statement issued by Adec.
He said that one of the main pillars of the 2009/2018 Strategy for developing education in the emirate of Abu Dhabi is to provide equal opportunities for all students to enjoy quality education at affordable costs; knowing that the private sector remains a key partner of Adec in the educational process.
Given the importance for the council of the provision of such adequate educational opportunities for the children of different nationalities and social categories and the increase in both supply and demand in the Educational Sector, Adec has approved 47 licenses to establish new schools following various curricula, such as the British, the American, the Arabic, the Indian curriculum, etc. This would increase the private sector capacity, providing 50000 to 60000 additional school seats during the next two years.
In order to secure the sustainability of this increase, the Council is currently looking at another 57 applications to found schools, he elaborated.
The sector's Business Development Division is working on increasing the capacity of existing private schools to accommodate 150 000 additional students during the coming 10 years through compiling a work plan and improving the private school sector's potential in Abu Dhabi and by attracting institutional and social investments, and international firms of private education.
Al Sheryani assured that the Council will not approve any increase in school fees unless they are compliant with legal procedures and the provision of the laws and regulations based on the Ministerial Council law number 29, year 2008 and the Decree of Crown Prince of Abu Dhabi, Deputy supreme commander of the Armed Forces, Chairman of ADEC number 4, year 2008. He said that no school can increase the fees without reporting to ADEC to have the approval, acting otherwise is considered against the laws.
He added that the Council has set specific procedures for schools to follow when applying for fees increment. These procedures include the provision of the financial audit statements issued by specialised external auditing bureaus and not from the school internal accountant covering the last two years report, the financial plan for the new academic year and the following years and filling the form provided by ADEC supported with the required financial documents each school has to submit.
The schools are also required to present their plan for educational development for the next two years along with the estimated cost for such a plan, the date of the last increase approved for the school fees and the extent of balance between the current / projected fee level with the capacity of the parents to afford and the assessment of the school's performance level. The Council would then study the applications carefully, appointing two committees to consider the financial and educational situation of the school prior to issuing an appropriate decision with the regards to the increase taking into account a reasonable profit level against the investments of the school proprietors.
While examining the applications, the Council also compares the fee level of the school applying for increase with the fee levels in similar schools providing equivalent educational service. This comparison uses a checklist of global standards prepared by a panel of experts from ADEC.
Al Sheryani also said that 61 of 181 schools operating in Abu Dhabi have applied for fees increase, 19 following the Ministry of Education curriculum, 18 the British/ American syllabus, 15 Asian curriculum schools and 9 from the IB system and other international curricula. ADEC has approved 41 applications and the average increase rate was 6.9 percent in tuition fees, while the school books prices jumped by 5.3 percent , uniform by 0.7 percent and the school bus service by 12.3 percent .
He noted that the schools have submitted exaggerated figures that were found incompatible with the Council's vision to provide affordable education for all. In the tuition fees, the requested increase ranged between 5 percent and 208 percent and only an average rate of 6.9 percent was granted. While in school books, the schools asked for 5 percent to 339 percent increase in the prices and they only obtained 5.3 percent . For transportation, 10 percent to 129 percent were requested and 12.3 percent approved, considered the rise in petrol prices. As for the uniform, the initial request was ranging between 5 percent and 371 percent but only 0.7 percent was agreed, i.e. less than 1 percent .
Al Sheryani added that during the application stage, the Council found out that many of those schools lack an appropriate financial management, which means that most of the financial data provided were not accurate enough and this led to the rejection of the application or allowing a very little increase. The Council has developed since last year a performance development program, targeting the administration in particular and will take a range of measures to support this endeavor for the promotion of the Educational Process in private schools.
He said that the Council will make sure all private schools keep commitment and to the laws organizing the fee structure and comply with the applicable procedures for requesting increases. ADEC will continuously monitor and control these schools to make sure they do implement the plans they presented to ADEC for the development of the Educational Process.