DUBAI — Schools in the emirate are confused and unsure if they can increase the transportation fees above the fee cap and have urged the emirate’s education body to clear the ambiguities surrounding the issue.
Heads of schools claim they were under the impression that the 16 per cent cap on increase of fees over two years included costs of books, uniforms, transport or food. However, the Knowledge and Human Development Authority (KHDA) states that it only regulates “mandatory” costs and not optional services.
“Most schools, like us, provide school buses as an option and do not compel parents to use them. We did not know we had the right to increase transportation fees. The education authorities should have been a little clearer on their stand,” said a school head, who did not want to be named.
The KHDA that monitors private and public schools in Dubai, however, stipulates that the schools cannot increase fees for services that are “mandatory”.
Mohammed Darwish, Chief of Licensing and Customer Relations at KHDA, told Khaleej Times, “As the authority has stated clearly, when a school doesn’t give a parent a choice about a service, then the school may not raise the fees for that service independently. However, in the case of optional services provided in addition to the basic tuition, and not imposed on the parents, the school or service provider is free to fix fees in line with the market forces.”
“There is a lot of ambiguity and we are trying to clarify with the KHDA what we are allowed to do,” said an official of another school
Many Indian and international private schools have planned to outsource or have already outsourced buses as, they say, they are unable to bear the spiralling costs of fuel and maintenance. In fact, Khaleej Times reported yesterday that nine schools under the Gems group in the emirate would be outsourcing school buses to an external provider from June 1, following the KHDA’s decision to turn down requests from the school to increase tuition fees above the cap of 16 per cent
Monica Harter, head of Corporate Communications at Gems, told KT earlier, “We have been providing transportation to our students at subsidised costs. We cannot continue to sustain the losses anymore.”
Nita Maitra, principal of The Apple International School, said, “We would request the regulatory authority to further clarify on the issue as transportation is generally optional.
“We will definitely want to look into restructuring our transport services in the future. We appreciate the KHDA’s policies and would like to be in line with them. However, we will first await clarification from the authorities concerned.”
By Preeti Kannan (Our staff reporter)