In the AAA School Survey we ask parents across the UAE whether they think education provision (i.e. getting a place at a school they believe is right for their child) is improving, worsening or staying the same. It's a question designed to get the perception of parents as to what is happening in the UAE.
On the other side of the coin, is what actually is happening in raw statistical terms. You would hope the two would reflect each other, and they do to a large part, although how much so is muddied in that the answer to whether there is school availability is not a binary yes or no.
In fascinating stats released by the KHDA, Dubai's education regulator, we now have numbers for both growth in student numbers, and actual school availability in percentage terms. The good news: Despite the ever growing number of students, there are empty seats in schools in Dubai - for every 10 places a school has the capacity for, more than one is currently going begging. Dubai schools have, on average, a current availability of almost 11%.
Put another way, there are some 26,000 spaces available to parents in the UAE currently not being utilised...
Note: Since the time of first writing this article, this number of available places will have risen even further, driven by new schools, and pressure on demographics. The principles of the article still very much apply, but for a "switcher", or a new family in Dubai, the good news is that today it is very much a buyer's market...
So how do you get school place?
That, today, there are today many more school places than ever before may not ring true of course to the parent who has just spent a day on the phone seeking a place for their child. It is more than statistically possible that school after school will not have a single one of those 26,000 places. Why? Simply because availability is not evenly spread, and parents are likely to have been calling all of the same schools as each other...
Affecting that spread is the following:
1. KHDA Ranking - a school is not necessarily popular because it is ranked Outstanding, it is popular because it is outstanding. (That said the KHDA badge is unlikely to harm a school's popularity.)
2. Age of School - this affects the perception, and knowledge of a school. A well established school will simply have more channels funneling students towards it, with word of mouth probably being the most important.
3. Curriculum of school - this is a balance of supply and demand for that curriculum
4. Age group - at the brunt of demand are early years education. Schools have time to gear up to the growth at the front end of the education cycle.
5. Price of school - is is too simplistic to say the cheaper the school the more popular it will be. Price plays a role, but will be a secondary not defining element of a Which School equation.
If you have a family, researching schools is a key bit of the puzzle - and not just when you arrive, but an ongoing challenge as your child moves through the stages of their education.
Do speak to friends and family, but remember that they are likely to rattle off the same names. Go beyond that. Look at WSA, look at the KHDA reports. The truth is, the more research you do, ultimately the better the school you may find for your child, a choice that in the end may be far better than your original limited ambitions.
Source : Which School Advisor.com
