British education system in Dubai needs 50,000 new seats by 2020

Dubai: With the continuous growth in the British education system in Dubai, an expected 50,000 seats will be needed by the year 2020, according to Abdullah Al Karam, Director and Chairman of the Knowledge and Human Development Authority (KHDA).

Al Karam estimated the figure during the forum titled ‘Education: Whose Business Is It?’ which was organised by the British Business Group yesterday. During the forum, Al Karam spoke about growth of the education sector in Dubai and the contributions that the British education system has made in supporting this growth.

“British education is what is lifting the education system in Dubai and British schools opening in Dubai play a big role in the standing of its education. The British system initially came here for the British living in the UAE, now only 15 per cent of the students attending British schools are British,” he added.

Al Karam added that the growth of the education sector in Dubai has been increasing at an average rate of seven per cent and that if he were to make a conservative estimate for the year 2020 for British schools it would be the following: “People constantly ask for a forecast for the year 2020 for British schools. With this steady growth I estimate that we will need 50,000 seats. This means that we need four to five new British curriculum schools per year.”

As for all curriculum schools, an estimated 60 new schools will be needed to provide 90,000 students with seats in the next five years.

According to Al Karam, Dubai schools do not cater only to Dubai residents and although quantity is needed, quality is important. “An estimated 30,000 students commute daily to school and when we wanted to find out the percentage of students who go to school in Dubai we got 105 to 110 per cent, that’s when we realised that we do not only cater to Dubai. ”

He also added that Dubai does not follow any model because its education system is very different from other countries. This is because Dubai does not only cater to its residents so it is not known where the growth is coming from. “We can’t plan for the growth, we have to accommodate the growth as it comes and try as much as possible to do so.”

Al Karam spoke about the KHDA’s role since its inception and its achievements so far. He mentioned that the KHDA was the first governmental body in the Middle East to receive a five star rating in EFQM (European Foundation for Quality Management), a non-profit membership foundation based in Brussels designed for helping organisations in their drive towards being more competitive.