Dubai private schools say pupil numbers are returning to pre-pandemic levels

Dubai’s private school population has grown by 10,000 pupils in 12 months and is edging back to the levels recorded before the coronavirus pandemic began.

Official statistics show that 289,019 pupils were enrolled in the emirate’s 215 schools at the start of the academic year.

This is up from 279,191 reported in the 2020-21 term.

In the 2019-20 school year, 295,148 children studied at 208 schools.

The figures were collected by the Knowledge and Human Development Authority, Dubai’s private education regulator.

A report released by a management consultancy last week said the increase in enrolment was partly a result of the renewed confidence of parents of early years pupils – children under 5 years of age – in a return to classroom learning.

Dubai ended distance learning at its private schools on October 3. The study by London-based LEK Consulting, found the primary reason for the drop-off in enrolment numbers during the pandemic was that parents were reluctant to send their children to school.

Parents did not believe online learning would be effective for early years pupils and were willing to allow those children to skip a year of school.

“When Covid-19 hit, most parents said that they did not want to send their children to school in early years because school was online,” said Ashwin Assomull, head of LEK Consulting’s global education practice.

When the move back to in-person learning came about, some parents still felt their children would be unsafe, especially those with multi-generational families who lived close together, he said.

“Also, younger kids are much less easy to control in terms of mask wearing,” he said.

“What happened in that year was that people thought they could pass and not send kids to school in the early years because they did not believe online delivery was effective.

“But what we have seen in September this year is that the market has bounced back significantly.

“We are expecting to see a bit more of an enrolment in January 2022 because everything’s much more open now.”

Sana Akhir from Sharjah, the mother of a three-year-old girl, said she chose not to send her daughter to school because the majority of classes remained online during the pandemic.

“It did not make sense to me because my child would sit in one place in front of a screen for hours for classes,” she said.

“I have been homeschooling her since she was 2 years old and thought I could do a better job at home as I am a hands-on mum.”

Ms Akhir said fear of her child catching coronavirus did not hold her back because the number of Covid-19 cases in the UAE was under control.

Wayne Howsen, principal at the Aquila School in Dubai, said the pandemic allowed some families of younger children to step back from the world of learning temporarily.

“In April and May 2020, we lost approximately 25 families,” he said.

“These were the youngest children in the school and 25 families said, with respect, learning at home for the very youngest was not really worth the money.

“But then most of them came back over the summer.

“When we said we could offer full-time learning in school, our numbers massively increased and since then have been stable.

“Over the period of the summer holiday, we had to open six new classes because our numbers skyrocketed.”

The school had about 530 pupils before the summer break and 623 in the autumn last year. Now, it has 839 pupils.

Fees at the school range from Dh36,000 ($9,800) in foundation stage one to Dh52,800 in Year 9 after a 20 per cent discount for which all families are eligible.

“We have lost a handful of families at the end of last academic year because they could no longer afford our school,” Mr Howsen said.

One reason the school’s roll grew was because it offered a full-time return to in-person classes, he said.

Also, the school’s policy of transparency involved a weekly update for families on the coronavirus situation among staff and pupils.

Not all schools in the Emirates faced a dip in numbers during the pandemic.

Monique Flickinger, superintendent at American Community School in Abu Dhabi, said the vast majority of parents at the school kept their children in classrooms throughout the pandemic.

“We had a community who were very interested in sending their children to school, so we had exceptionally high attendance figures,” Ms Flickinger said.

“We never dipped below 97 per cent.

“We installed a rigorous cleaning school process and parents had a high level of trust in us.”

We are expecting to see a bit more of an enrolment in January 2022 because everything’s much more open now

ASHWIN ASSOMULL

LEK Consulting