Dubai: GEMS Education, the biggest school group in the UAE, has said it has frozen salary increases for teachers after Dubai halted school fee increases for the 2018-19 school year.
GEMS has over 16,000 staff and education professionals, according to its website, www.gemseducation.com.
The company — which has roots as a single school in Dubai founded in 1960s by the Varkey family from India — owns and operates 47 schools and nurseries in the UAE, Saudi Arabia and Qatar, according to the website.
On Wednesday, a spokesperson for GEMS Education confirmed the teacher salary freeze in a statement to Gulf News: “The current move to hold salary increases is based on the recent school fee freeze decision [by the Dubai Executive Council. This is not an unusual measure to take in uncertain times.”
On June 6, the Dubai Executive Council had announced a freeze on private school fees in Dubai for the academic year 2018-19 to ease the financial burden on parents.
Besides GEMS, it is not yet known how many schools in the UAE have decided to halt salary increases for teachers for the 2019 financial year.
The GEMS spokesperson’s statement added: “Our priority remains on providing quality education. Teachers within the GEMS Education network of schools are our most valuable resource and are at the core of our profession. We have placed them at the centre of all our successes and in that context, we invested significantly in their salaries and benefits over the past five years. The cumulative salary increase was 25-48 per cent when the Education Cost Index only increased by approximately 11 per cent. In addition, we created 7,000 new jobs over the same period.”
