Dubai: The United International Private School (UIPS), the first and oldest Philippine school in Dubai, marked its 25th founding anniversary on Saturday with a four-day student-oriented programme, including field demonstrations and a sports event.
The UIPS was founded in September 1992 by two Emiratis, Colonel Mohammad Al Hersh and Dr Mohammad Al Niyadi, based on their vision to provide quality education for the growing Filipino community.
“We knew 25 years ago that this community would grow and it’s grown to become one of the largest communities in the UAE now. We started with just a few students and every year we kept growing,” Dr Al Niyadi, owner and chairman of the advisory council of UIPS, told Gulf News during the event.
From just 125 students and 20 faculty and staff then, the school has grown to have a student population of more than 2,000 from KG1 to Grade 11. Grade 12 will start in September.
“We wanted to serve the Filipino community where they can have good education while away from their country, where the family is satisfied knowing that their children are in good hands. We didn’t look for money; we struggled financially to sustain the school in the beginning,” Dr Al Niyadi, himself an educator, said.
Dr Al Niyadi said many people persuaded him to change his school from a Philippine-curriculum school to a British-curriculum school but he declined. “We said no. We committed ourselves to this community and we will continue.”
The UIPS is the first Filipino school to have been rated “good” by the Knowledge and Human Development Authority (KHDA) for two consecutive years. It is also the first Filipino school to have the approval to offer Grades 11 and 12, which is now a Philippine requirement.
“Filipinos are clannish. So the parents are so happy that UIPS offers KG1 to Grade 12. Now we have two classes, this year we will have additional classes,” Jenny Gonzales, HR and Relations manager at UIPS, said.
Eisa Javir Sedigo Puentespina, whose four kids are enrolled at UIPS, said the new classes in Grades 11 and 12 are beneficial to parents.
“We prefer that our children study in Dubai rather than back home because it’s better to live together as a family than to have one of our kids go home just for that,” Puentespina, president of the Parent-Teacher Community Council and who has a child who is now in eleventh grade, said.
Lizette Badando, another parent of an eleventh grader, agreed and said there is a growing demand for the K-12 Basic Education Programme for Filipinos in the UAE. She said she hopes there would be more seats in the UAE and would have more academic strands aside from the Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM) strand.
