Outdated fee structures on school websites confuse Dubai parents

It’s not just the school inspection report card, proximity to home or peer pressure that governs how parents choose a school for their children.

It’s also about whether it fits their budget.

In fact, school fees are an equally important deciding factor, if not the most important.

“Although we do look at recommendations from friends and family, and school grading, in the end, it all boils down to whether we can afford it or not,” explains a parent.

Sarah K, who lives in Al Nahda, chose a school in their area that offered British curriculum within their budget.
The decision was delayed however because it took a lot of more legwork than she had anticipated.

“I first listed out our choice of schools based on different points, but later found out that the fees displayed on the websites of most of the schools we selected were outdated.

“So, we had to rework our list again.”

Another parent Nishant complained that the tedious exercise can be altered if school websites updated their fees every year.
“Why is it such a big secret? Some schools put up old fees so it’s a bit tricky when we go to pay the fees.”

In fact, many parents pointed out that not all schools mention the add-ons.

“It would say Dh12,000 for a year on their website, but it wouldn’t calculate miscellaneous amounts,” observed another parent, who did not wish to be named.

“There’s a fee for everything from medical, book, Arabic, IT and stationary, and these are above the annual tuition fee that appears on the school website.”

While many Dubai private school websites are not updated, several don’t publish their fee structure.

A few local websites offer a more realistic picture by publishing comparative rates of Dubai school fees, but even some of these aren’t revised.

When Emirates24|7 contacted the Knowledge and Human Development Authority (KHDA), they urged parents to check the information on the KHDA official website.

“Fee information and fee framework is available on the KHDA website,” said Abdulrahman Nassir, Chief of Customer Relations, adding, “KHDA does not govern the content of school websites.”

For the new academic year, Dubai private schools were allowed to increase fees based on their grading in KHDA’s school inspection report and the educational cost index issued by Dubai Statistics Centre.

Based on this, a fee increase of 3.48 per cent was allowed for “outstanding” schools, 2.61 per cent for “good” and 1.74 per cent for the rest.

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