Pay more fees every year even if your child's school rating drops

The education regulatory authority, the Knowledge and Human Development Authority (KHDA), has clarified that Dubai schools will be allowed to increase every year, even if their Dubai School Inspection Bureau (DSIB) rating drops.

The drop, KHDA specified, will only impact the fee-hike percentage. This means that if a school drops it’s rating from ‘outstanding’ to ‘good’, the increase will shift from 6 per cent to 4.5 per cent.

“Unless specified otherwise, the school fees framework (https://www.khda.gov.ae/Pages/En/feeframeworken.aspx) will apply to schools next year as well.

As per the framework, schools will be permitted fee hikes in accordance with the quality rating from DSIB,” said Mohammed Darwish, Chief of Regulations and Compliance Commission (RCC) of KHDA.

“Therefore, if a school drops in quality, the resultant drop in fee increase is inevitable.”

As most schools have started to roll out their new fees parents are stressing the need to penalise schools if their DSIB grading dips in the next year.

“If the school’s rating drops from ‘outstanding’ to ‘good’, then they shouldn’t be allowed to increase their fees the next year,” asserted parent of a seventh grader.

Parents, in fact, aren’t convinced that the increase in fees improved the quality of education.

“It’s not like if we pay more, they will teach our kids better?” questioned parent of an eighth grader.

Some even exposed that schools inspections were misused.

“It’s like a carnival before the school inspection. Teachers don’t take any class and focus only in prepping the school to look perfect,” revealed another parent.

“They go out of the way to please the inspectors.”

DSIB inspections shouldn’t be marked on the calendar and it should be carried out at random, suggested many parents.

“If they schedule surprise visits then they will see the real picture. Informing the school authorities in advance only makes this exercise useless,” emphasised another parent.

KHDA had earlier confirmed that 75 Dubai schools were given the go-ahead for the new marked-up fee, but insisted that the latest list will be made public soon.

Schools that are rated “outstanding” were allowed 6 per cent increase, while schools marked “good” 4.5 per cent, and those listed as “satisfactory” and “unsatisfactory” allowed 3 per cent.

When KHDA had presented this new framework, it had clarified that, fee-hike is not mandatory and is at the discretion of the schools.

“Schools may or may not choose to increase fees. This decision lies with the schools themselves. However, once they have chosen to increase fees and apply to KHDA, they can only do so in line with KHDA’s approval,” added Darwish.

The framework elaborated that some schools could even get special KHDA permission to hike more than 6 per cent.

And those that will be considered under this bracket are the not-for-profit, embassy and special needs schools and also those investing in infrastructure expansion.

The permission, if granted, would mean those schools will have to cap the hike for the next three years.

Follow Emirates 24|7 on Google News.