Der Abu Dhabi Education Council (ADEC) hat 47 Lizenzen an private Investoren vergeben, um neue Schulen im Emirat aufzubauen. In den nächsten zwei Jahren sollen damit 50.000 bis 60.000 neue Plätze im privaten Sektor geschaffen werden.
UAE: 47 new private schools to be set up in Capital
The Abu Dhabi Education Council has awarded 47 licences to private investors to establish new schools in the emirate, thus increasing the private sector capacity by 50,000 to 60,000 additional seats in the next two years.
The licences were granted for various curricula, including British, American, Arabic and Indian.
The ADEC is also considering another 57 applications in an effort to sustain the growing demand for places and to regulate the market (cost of fees) by increasing the school supply over demand. There are currently 181 private schools operating across the Abu Dhabi emirate and over 170,000 enrollees for the new academic year.
Early this year, the ADEC had rolled out its comprehensive plan for long-term improvement in the private sector, where the largest group of students is enrolled.
Student population in the private sector increases by five per cent per annum every year. An estimated 10,000 additional seats are required thus making capacity provision an important priority for the ADECADECAbu Dhabi Education Council said on Sunday that it is "working on increasing the capacity of the existing private schools to accommodate 150,000 additional students (in) the coming 10 years".
The ADEC statement added that it will manage this by improving the Abu Dhabi private school sector's potential and by attracting international institutions and businessmen to invest in private education here.
Dr Mugheer Khamis Al Khaili, Director General of the ADEC had earlier expressed the council's endeavour to improve accessibility into the private sector by making education affordable, and to ensure future quality output through quality education, especially since 31 per cent of Emiratis account for the student enrolment in the private sector.
In terms of affordability, the ADEC had given its approval in July to 60 schools to increase their fees. Out of these, 40 were allowed to increase their tuition fees while the rest were only allowed to increase their fees for books, uniforms and transportation.
The new approval procedure came into effect early 2011 and takes into account several factors, including planned improvements and investments the schools need to fund, educational performance, financial position and their fee increases history, as well as, the ability of parents to afford the increases.
Youssef Al Sheryani, Executive Director of the Private Education and Quality Assurance Sector at ADECADECAbu Dhabi Education Council has assured that "the council will not approve any increase in school fees unless they are (in) compliance with legal procedures and the provision of the laws and regulations."