Funding children’s education has become a hugely costly affair for parents in the UAE. The cost of school supplies — textbooks, stationery and bags — has also shot up for the new academic year, which has compounded parents’ woes. Moreover, this steep hike in schooling expenses comes at a time when the cost of living has experienced a parallel rise. Basic necessities, such as food, transportation and rent are becoming increasingly pricey
Some parents are desperately looking for alternatives. Some have delayed sending their offspring to school in order to save money for their education for the next academic year. Others have begun home-schooling their children at the primary level. Many women have also started working so they could ease the financial pressure on their husbands and contribute towards their children’s education expenses. However, even those parents who can afford to pay exorbitant fees complain that standards of schooling are not commensurate with the rise in fees.
On the other hand, schools also have to contend with the problems of inflation. Many not-for-profit school systems have found it increasingly difficult to cope with these escalating expenses.
This state of affairs is rather unfortunate, especially at a time when the government is striving to reform the education sector. The fact of the matter is although it is important to raise education standards, quality education should also be affordable for the population at large. Although the UAE authorities have made an effort to decentralise the educational system in order to improve standards of education, they need to devise ways of making it possible for most children to have access to this system.
One option is offering subsidies on utilities and rental costs for private schools so they are not forced to pass on these expenses to parents in the form of high fees. Schools should be encouraged to offer bursaries for outstanding students and fee concessions for parents who have more than two school-going children. The government also needs to ensure that fee hikes are proportionate to the rise in teachers’ salaries.
Wages given to teachers at private schools are often not commensurate with fee increases, which has negatively affected their morale. Hence government needs to ensure teachers at private schools are reasonably paid. Additionally, companies could be encouraged to offer their employees educational allowance for children as is the case in some other Gulf countries. Only when quality education is affordable to the population at large can the UAE realise its inspirational vision of elevating education standards turning itself into the knowledge capital of the world.