Drop in students at 'unprofessional' driving schools hits instructors hard

Sharjah: Instructors in the private driving schools in a Nasseriya complex are struggling to cope with charges for work permits and meagre wages along with a drop in students.

Students are opting for the driving school managed by Sharjah Municipality and Sharjah Police and Traffic Department.

A majority of them said they found the private schools in the Nasseriya complex overcrowded due to the large number of schools there and "unprofessional" system.

The Nasseriya driving complex holds 25 schools with more than 350 instructors.

Driving instructors have to pay a rent of Dh1,000-Dh1,500 per month to the owner of the school to work. In exchange, the owner has to get students for the instructors, which the latter claim is not enough.

The instructors make about Dh1,700 per month in wages but that varies since they do not receive fixed salaries.

"Getting enough students is very important because otherwise I would not have enough to live on," said Ijaz, an instructor who has an average of five students a day.

Several instructors said that they suffered setbacks last month due to rain, as they were unable to hold classes in the flooded streets. But still they had to pay the fees. Female students are charged at a rate of Dh40 every 45 minutes.

Male students are charged an average of Dh30 every 45 minutes for driving manually and Dh40 for automatic driving.

"We pay the rent fee for the car plate number and the work visa. We also have to pay for petrol, service charge, medical and labour cards, and the car loan. The school doesn't provide me with anything except permission to work," said an employee in one of the private schools, who declined to be named.

"The management at the school where I was learning was unprofessional and unorganised. I was not able to start my classes on the road because they had lost my file, and could not prove that I passed the theory and garage tests. I was also unable to contact my teacher because he had gone on holiday," said a former student at the Nasseriya complex.

Hussain Abdul Rahman chose to reopen a new file at the driving institute run by Sharjah Municipality.