Dubai At a time when school admissions and fees are rising in the UAE, a prominent Indian educational group is opening a third school that promises to keep costs “affordable” while offering “top quality” education.
Ashok Chandra, Chairman of the Delhi Public School (DPS) Society, which runs over 180 schools in 13 countries, said on Tuesday that it will launch the Union Indian International School (UIIS) in Dubai next April.
He said: “UIIS is a joint venture between Dubai-based Union Holdings and Dinesh C. Kothari, Pro-Vice Chairman of DPS Dubai, and will follow the Indian ICSE curriculum. Admissions start January-end or beginning of February.” Based in Academic City, the school will run classes from KG 1 to Grade 5. It will add Grades 6, 7 and 8 in the second year and Grades 9 and 11 in the third. It will enrol around 2,000 students in the first year with the ultimate capacity going up to 3,500. Chandra said the school, spread over 40,000 square metres of land, will have state-of-the-art classrooms, nine laboratories, a huge amphitheatre, an indoor multi-purpose hall, two basketball courts, a cricket ground, a football field and a covered pool.
The annual tuition fees are expected to begin at Dh21,000. “Our focus is clear. We want to provide top quality education at a reasonable cost. Overall, we should be around 30 per cent cheaper than other ICSE schools,” said Chandra. Kothari said like the other two DPS schools — DPS Sharjah and DPS Dubai — transportation fees at UIIS will be subsidised and kept reasonable.
Asked to comment about the general perception that DPS Dubai falls short compared to DPS Sharjah, Kothari said: “There is no difference between the two, just that the Sharjah school was launched in 2000 and Dubai in 2003. Our latest results show that 87 out of the 88 students who appeared for the Grade 12 CBSE board exam secured first division. The average school percentage was 80.5. Similarly, the average CGPA (Cumulative Grade Point Average) in Grade 10 was 8.9.”
He added that DPS has stringent criteria for selecting teachers and maintains a healthy teacher-student ratio of 1:13.
