Dubai: Many parents are concerned over their children's schooling saying the sudden decision to close villa schools is causing chaos.
The Ministry of Education ordered the closure of 26 private villa schools in Dubai and Sharjah last week.
The move is in-line with a Ministry of Cabinet Affairs Decree No. 28, 1999, ordering the closure of all villa schools in the UAE with the aim of securing a safe and educational environment for all pupils.
Many school managements said they had not contacted the majority of parents as they were trying to persuade Sharjah Education Zone to prolong the closure for at least one more academic year and also many families were away on holiday.
"We can't contact most parents as they are out of the country. We did receive a warning from the Education Zone but it takes a lot of time to allocate new land to build a school and get approval from various authorities. We are currently starting to build a new school which will take a year to complete," said a spokesperson from the Al Isra School.
However, Dr Maryam Al Ali, Director of the private education department at the ministry, said three schools in Sharjah had appealed following the decision.
Warnings
"When they saw we had implemented our previous warning to close down villa schools, they started taking serious steps to move to a new building. We will still study these three individual cases before giving our final verdict," she told Gulf News.
"We are not against the ministry's decision at all. On the contrary we very much welcome the initiative but the timing to close down the school is very bad. I learnt about the closure from the newspapers two days ago. Nobody told us about this. Where will I put my children," said Ameen, one parent last week.
The Yemeni national has two children studying at Al Esra Private School in Sharjah. The situation has been described by many parents as "complete chaos" as the fate of the pupils, administrative and teaching staff is unknown.
"Just recently the education zone approved our licensing renewal and we also paid for it. This sudden move to close down our school does not make sense to me. We do realise that some villa schools should be closed immediately and some are not even taking the decision seriously but why do we have to pay for it? We have all the documents to prove our plan to move to a new school in September 2009," said one school spokesperson.
One Emirati parent said that he would have some difficulty finding a place for his seven-year-old son in a public school as registering him now would be crossing the deadline, which was from March 4 to June 28.
"I speak on behalf of all parents when I say the biggest challenges will be for expatriates as most, if not all, private schools in the country will at least require Dh10,000 per child whereas in a villa school we pay only Dh4,000. Expatriates are only permitted in public schools under stringent conditions and have to pay fees [ranging from Dh3,000 to Dh 6,000]. Further, most parents still do not know about the decision since they are holidaying in their home countries now," said Juma Al Husani, who learned about the matter from a newspaper.
Four of the 26 private villa schools in Sharjah and Dubai will be operating their school from a new campus.
According to a Gulf News report in 2005, 90 schools were operating out of villas in the UAE despite a Ministry of Education directive that they must move to dedicated premises and now only 36 villa schools remain in the UAE.
Fouzia Al Gareeb, Director of Sharjah Education Zone, said all the villa schools were notified at the beginning of the second term but most schools did not take the matter seriously.
"If schools have proof of plans to build a new school and are starting the operation then we might consider prolonging the closure," she said.
Sharjah Education Zone said they would help all parents find new schools for their children.
By Siham Al Najami, Staff Reporter