Freeze on private school fees is a welcome gesture Filed on March 15, 2021
It will give households some relief at a time when the pandemic has strained financial budgets.
The foundation of a society and its future rest on the quality of education its children receive at the school and university levels. Schools, arguably, are the engines of social change, equipping children with the power of knowledge and learning to be able to climb the scales of social mobility on their own. But what is often a stumbling block for parents and students alike is access to good education, preferably for free or at an affordable price. Dearth of public or government-funded schools often push parents towards the private ones. In Dubai, for instance, a majority of its over 250,000-strong student population attends private schools, despite high tuition fees. A number of reports have pointed out this, the latest one being the 2019 survey by Dubai-based Education Intelligence Group. It noted th
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Raising a child is an expensive exercise for many parents, with childcare costs accounting for a big chunk of household budgets. Even before factoring in school fees, working parents in the UAE pay a significant amount to either nurseries or nannies to look after their toddlers.
About 80 per cent of families in the UAE spend between 5 per cent and a quarter of their household income on their children’s education, according to a 2019 study by Dubai-based consultancy Education Intelligence Group and listings portal Property Finder, which polled 3,000 parents.
Insurance company Zurich also found in a 2017 study that educating a child in the UAE from preschool through to university can cost about Dh1 million.