Abu Dhabi: The prestigious Mayo brand of schooling from Ajmer in India is coming to the UAE.
Starting April 2014 the Mayo College General Council (MCGC)’s Mayoor Private School will start classes from KG 1 to Grade 7 at Al Wathba in Abu Dhabi. The registration process will begin this September.
MCGC runs the centuries-old Mayo College, a boarding school in Ajmer, besides the Mayoor private schools, a chain of day-scholar facilities. The Abu Dhabi school, which will follow the same CBSE curriculum, will be the first Mayoor school outside India.
The school will be operated as a franchise by the Taalem National Private Education and Facilities Management Company under the Abu Dhabi-based Al Sayegh Brothers. Firoze Kapadia, Group Chief Financial Officer, told XPRESS that the group’s chairman Abdul Jabber Al Sayegh has obtained the franchise for the entire GCC and has plans to open more schools across the region.
He said the Abu Dhabi school will maintain the same standards and traditions of Mayo in all aspects. “The board of directors will ensure this with the help of a management committee which has three members from Mayo College. The faculty recruitment process will also be vetted by this committee.”
He said the school will be offering the best wages to teachers in the industry, on par with international schools. It will initially take in 800 students from KG 1 to Grade 7. “We will have two teachers in every class. The student strength will be 25 or 30 depending on the class. The fees will be very competitive,” he said, but did not mention the amount.
He said one unique feature of the school would be the introduction of tablet learning as opposed to textbooks. A 22,000 square-metre facility, the school will have state-of-the-art infrastructure for academics and extra-curricular activities. Features include cricket, soccer and hockey grounds, tennis and basketball courts, a mini golf or putting range, a swimming pool and gymnasium and a multi-purpose auditorium. “The only activity from Mayo that we are not currently offering is horse-riding,” said Kapadia.
