Dubai: Aiming to increase the quality of education across private school in the city, the Dubai Executive Council’s Social Development Committee met to discuss school licensing policies, student results, tuition rates and complaints received by the public.

The meeting, held at Emirates Towers, was chaired by Maj Gen Mohammad Ahmad Al Merri, chairman of the committee, in the presence of Abdullah Al Shaibani, Secretary-General of Dubai Executive Council.

During the meeting, the Knowledge and Human Development Authority (KHDA) gave a presentation on the education policies of private schools, which aim to make Dubai among the best in the world in the field of high-quality private education.

According to the official statement issued on Monday, the KHDA’s policies are drawn up by way of an analytical framework, which examines a number of aspects such as the quality of private schools and student results, the school’s capacity and the regulation of the licensing process of private schools.

The meeting reviewed the quality gaps across private schools in Dubai and their students’ results. The committee also revised the current state of the private education sector in the 2013-2014 academic year.

Earlier this year, the KHDA stressed on private schools increasing pupil performance levels in maths and science in a bid to meet the UAE’s national agenda goals by 2021.

During the same period, Dr Abdullah Al Karam, Director-General of KHDA, said that schools were experiencing “a linear progress” and an “exponential growth” was necessary to meet the agenda’s goals.

At the meeting, the committee looked into statistics disclosing the prominent gaps in the availability of educational services, classroom capacity, cost and educational needs. The committee also reviewed statistics depicting the expansion rate in the education sector and the increase in the number of students.

The committee looked into complaints regarding an increase in school fees in the 2014-2015 school year, specifically an increase in prices and fees for activities, additional coaching, registration fees, books and stationery.

Earlier this year, the KHDA revealed that out of 948 complaints received in 2014, 167 were regarding school fees. Teacher conduct came second in the list of woes with 149 complaints, while problems related to student admission was third with 130 complaints.

The committee reviewed updated lists and statistics on the number of for-profit and non-profit schools, private schools that are qualified and not qualified for an increase in fees, comparing them to schools that have increased their fees during the current year. The list includes a general list of school fees and is implemented on all private schools that have been operating for longer than three years. The fees are determined primarily on the basis of inflation and the quality of education, as assessed by the school monitoring body.

The committee discussed updates on the system pertaining to abandoned children. Since its launch, the system made various social contributions in the field by implementing approved procedures and mechanisms for families applying to take abandoned children under their care, in addition to the launch of various awareness campaigns in Dubai to encourage families to take in abandoned children. The campaigns resulted in scores of families applying to take in the children, and also revealed a number of illegal instances of adoption in Dubai and other emirates.