Dubai: Parents of The Westminster School (TWS) prefer a fee increase over the school’s closure. Gems Education, which owns the school, had announced that the operation will close down by June 2014 due to restrictions in the fee structure based on the inspection rating by the Knowledge and Human Development Authority (KHDA)
KHDA, however, said that the closure of the school is a business decision and their assessment result was not to blame because they apply a unified standard on all schools operating in Dubai.
Parents of students who attend TWS told Gulf News that they would have preferred an increase in fees instead of having to search for new schools for their children by June 2014.
Due to this fee structure TWS was only able to increase its fees by 3 per cent, an increase that TWS claims is not enough to produce the required improvements by a school that already has low fees.
Parents who spoke to Gulf News about the school’s closure said that if they were given the option they would have preferred the increase given that it was within reason.
Egyptian parent Riham Mohammad Ali, a mother of three children who attend TWS, said that she would not have minded the increase if it was within 10 to 20 per cent: “I wouldn’t have minded the increase if it was within reason. The new school that I will have to place my children in will probably be more expensive than Westminster, so both ways I am going to pay more.”
“The decision came out of the blue. They say that they are giving us 18 months before the school closes in June 2014 but in reality we only have three months because the deadline to decide if we want to put our children in a GEMS school is March 2014. Also, TWS offers grade 13 and my daughter needs to attend grade 13 to complete her AS levels, so it is going to be another factor that I have to worry about when having to choose a new school.”
A parent of two children in grades 7 and 11 who requested not to be named also said that she was saddened by the closure and would have preferred to pay more.
“I think that TWS is a good school, my eldest son graduated from it and is currently doing really well in university, I feel it was because he received a good foundation in TWS. So I would prefer to keep my remaining children in the school even if it means paying more over having to look for a new school.”
When KHDA was asked to comment on the closure they stated that the closure was solely a business decision that GEMS had made and KHDA has governed TWS fees the same as it would with any other school.
“GEMS submitted an application to close The Westminster School at the end of the academic year 2013-14. It was a business decision taken by GEMS. The School Fees Framework governs all fee increases at Dubai’s private schools. The fee increases at The Westminster School were also governed similarly,” said Mohammad Darwish, Chief of Regulations and Compliance Commission at KHDA
Noor Nazzal is an intern at Gulf News
