Pakistani schools in UAE facing financial crunch

DUBAI: Pakistani schools in United Arab Emirates (UAE) have been passing through a challenging phase from educational standards to financial problems for the last a few years in the emirates. And now Pakistan missions have come up to resolve these issues pertaining from financial to educational standard.

There are more than 10 Pakistani curriculum schools in the UAE and around 8,000 students are registered with these schools. Consul General of Pakistan Brigadier (R) Javed Hassan informed the media on Thursday about the steps of the mission that are being taken to address the educational sector. He specially focused on two Pakistani schools in Northern emirates (1) Pakistan Islamia Secondary School Ras Al Khaimah and (2) Pakistan Islamia School Fujairah. He said that the map of the building of Pakistani school in Ras Al Khaimah has already been approved and the construction work will be carried out in Sept 2018.

The press release was issued by the press section of the consulate stating “The building of the school will be completed in 18 months with the cost of AED 9 million.” But they didn’t reveal about the funds of development from where they will arrange the construction. The new construction will start after summer vacations in September so the consulate will have to hire another alternative building for school’s operation till the construction is completed. Almost 600 students are enrolled in the school.

During the press briefing, the Consul General Javed Hassan also stated that the depilated building of the Fujairah school will be constructed in two years at the cost of 19 million dirhams.

It is also observed that the building of Pakistan consulate in Dubai was dilapidated and the current Consul General also left his residence due to the complaints of falling of a part of roof in the home. Diplomatic sources confirmed that the map of the new consulate building had been approved two years back but the construction work has not started as yet.

While, the UAE Ministry of Education has asked Pakistani missions to upgrade the concrete building of Fujairah’s school otherwise the institution will not be allowed to operate from the next year. “After the completion of building of schools, the curriculum of the Pakistani schools will be improved as well,” Consul General concluded.

The Dubai government school monitoring authority KHDA is also worried about Sheikh Rashid Al Maktoum Pakistani School Dubai performance. For the last seven years, the school monitoring authority Knowledge and Human Development Authority’s (KHDA) annual inspections has been grading Sheikh Rashid Al Maktoum Pakistani School “weak”.