18,000 new school seats available in Abu Dhabi

More than 18,000 seats have become available this academic year with the opening of 14 new private schools in Abu Dhabi and Al Ain. An additional 18 new schools — currently being designed and under construction — are expected to offer another 20,000 places soon.

Students boarding the school bus after the first day of classes following the summer vacation at Philippine Emirates Private School in Baniyas East, Abu Dhabi, on Sunday. — KT photo by Shoaib Anwer

The Abu Dhabi Education Council (Adec) said this has exceeded its initial target of providing school seats for students. Last year, the council reported it expected over 11,000 school seats to be available only in 2015-2016 academic year when the new schools in Khalifa City, Al Wathba and Al Falah areas are expected to start functioning.

“There is a strategy plan to offer additional school seats to keep up with the growing student population rate,” said Hamad Al Dhaheri, Adec’s Private Schools and Quality Assurance Sector (PSQA) executive director.

The growing population of students in private schools has been increasing annually by seven per cent in the past six years, thus requiring ongoing investments in this sector. The Adec predicted that if demand continues in the current rate, an additional 146,000 seats and 100 more private schools will be required by 2020.

The 14 new schools offer the much-demanded curricula — English (four), Indian (four), American, Canadian, Philippine and the Ministry of Education. Thirteen are located in Abu Dhabi and one in Al Ain.

Al Dhaheri said providing these many school seats come in line with the Adec’s ongoing efforts to encourage private school investments. “The PSQA team has been flexible with investors regarding the allocation of school plots and licensing and accreditation mandates, which has in return increased the number of investments for private schools.”

Two schools that opened this year are the Shining Star International School in Mohammed bin Zayed City and The Philippine School (TPS) Abu Dhabi in Baniyas East. Both operate from a government school building allocated by the Adec.

The Shining Star accommodated the students displaced with the closure of villa schools — the Indian Islahi Islamic School and Little Flower Private School. The school opened in April according to the Indian school calendar.

“We are very happy because we have CBSE affiliation from Grades 1 to 12. We received so much support from the Adec and the Indian Embassy,” said principal Muhsin K., also former principal of Indian Islahi.

According to him, the new school took on 850 students from the Indian Islahi and nearly 200 from Little Flower. The Shining Star currently has over 1,300 students in its rolls, out of the 1,400 school capacity. In accordance with its agreement with the Adec, villa school students were charged a “subsidised rate” of Dh3,688 per year for KG2 up to Dh5,460 for Grade 12 and have to maintain this fee structure in three years.

The new school has been allocated a land in Al Wathba by the Adec for the construction of its own school.

The newly opened TPS has started registering students on August 3 immediately after receiving its licence from the Adec.

As of the opening of classes on Monday, the school has over 800 students, majority of whom were from the closed down villa school — the Philippine National School (PNS).

“We have accommodated everyone; this is our instruction from the Adec. Our last-minute enrolees include those students who just came back from their vacation and found out that their school have already been closed,” said Letty Maniaul, managing director of TPS.

Meanwhile, the Philippine Emirates Private School (PEPS), formerly Pisco Private School, which operated from a villa, will operate from its leased school building for the second year.

According to principal Rosemary Natividad, it currently has 950 students in its rolls but the new facility can accommodate up to 1,200 pupils.

“We are now just waiting for the plot that the Adec will give us (to construct our own school) and we hope that this will also be in Baniyas East or in Mohammed bin Zayed City,” she told Khaleej Times.

olivia@khaleejtimes.com