Dubai: Offering relief to middle income Indian parents in Sharjah, two new schools — one exclusively for special needs children — will admit students from the next academic year.
Both the schools will function under the management of the Indian Association Sharjah (IAS).
The building of the new Sharjah Indian School, a branch of the existing one, will be officially inaugurated by Pinarayi Vijayan, the chief minister of the south Indian state of Kerala, on Thursday evening, IAS office bearers said at a press conference in Dubai on Tuesday.
“The school will have a strength of 6,000 students. We will open admissions for 4,000 students from KG to grade 12 for the next academic year. Almost 2,000 students will be shifted to the new school from our old school,” said Y.A. Rahim, the recently re-elected presidents of IAS.
According to him, the new school will be a big relief to children from middle income families. “Our fees are far less than the other Indian CBSE schools. The fee for grade 12 is as low as Dh560, whereas it is almost three times more in some other schools,” he noted.
Rahim said the management is also working on opening a new school for special needs children, which will cater to about 200 students.
“There has been a pressing demand for a school for children with special needs. Many parents are struggling to get admission in affordable schools for their children with disabilities,” he said.
The association is already providing the facilities in its building’s premises for organising extracurricular activities for about 200 special needs children. The plan is to help their parents enrol them into a school that will offer comprehensive and advanced special needs education. Rahim said it will follow the scheme of Inclusive Education for Disabled prescribed by India’s Ministry of Human Resources Development.
“We have already taken a villa for this. The renovation work and the procedures for securing the licence are going on. We are hopeful that we can begin the school in the new academic year. We are expecting the wholehearted support of prominent members of the community for this project worth Dh10 million,” said Rahim.
He said the inauguration of the new Sharjah Indian School in Juwaiza area by Vijayan is a milestone achievement in the history of the school that had a humble beginning in 1979. The school that began with 800 students currently has a strength of 10,000.
