If Dubai can do it, why can't Israel?
As foreign residents of Dubai account for 80-90 percent of the international city’s population of 2 million, private schools are extremely plentiful. There are 152 private schools in Dubai, as compared to only 80 public schools. While some of these institutions have become goldmines for investors and large education networks that also operate elsewhere in the Middle East and Africa, others are struggling to survive.
Competition to secure a coveted spot in one of the best private schools is fierce, and the application process begins while the student is in kindergarten. Recently, a parent who hails from India wrote online that he doled out non-refundable $150 registration fees to each of the schools – despite the fact that he hasn't yet heard back from any of them about his application. “We contact you only when the child is accepted,” the father has been told. “So why do I have to pay if you don’t accept my child?” he asked. “Because we have to pay a salary to the person who checks the application,” he was informed.
Private education in Dubai is indeed a business in every respect. And a school that can’t afford the expenditures shuts down. The public schools, however, receive generous government support, and parents who fall behind in their payments often get a sweeping exemption from their debts, a gift from the ruler of Dubai. All schools are subject to inspection by Dubai's Ministry of Education, which operates a strict ranking system. Schools are divided into three levels: inadequate to adequate, good, and excellent. This ranking determines the tuition that the schools can charge.
Moreover, according to the ranking, the Education Ministry determines how high the annual tuition hikes can be. Low-ranked schools may raise fees by 3 percent; those in the middle category can raise them by 4.5% percent; and the best schools can hike fees by 6 percent. This results in a vicious cycle in which struggling schools are provided with little opportunity to improve their status, due to their inability to charge parents more money.
What this means is that educators try every trick in the book to improve their ranking when inspectors come around. They send the weakest children home, they temporarily bring in outside teachers, and even instruct students to raise their hands simultaneously when their teacher asks a question. To make sure the kids make a good impression, children who know the answer are instructed to raise their right hand; those who don’t raise their left.
Dubai's system is not the exception. Entire generations of the Gulf States' millions of foreign workers have been educated by private schools that do not offer a level of education on par with the high costs parents are forced to pay. And yet, for the most part, these parents have no choice. Where they come from, it is likely that many of their kids would not have attended school at all.
“This is not a way to address the problem,” one parent wrote in response to the announcement that the Westminster School would be closed. “We are living in Dubai, we work here and we are helping the development of the city and the country of the United Arab Emirates. Our children should be compared to the children of the country's citizens. We are entitled to the same benefits and the same level of education.”
This demand from parents has been heard by the country’s leadership, but various factors make doing anything about it nearly impossible. With foreign workers coming to Dubai from at least two dozen countries, their children often have huge gaps in prior education, speak a multitude of languages, and display a range of other cultural differences.
And still, Dubai could serve as a model for countries with many foreign workers. These residents are an integral part of the country’s society and economy; they are entitled to marry and bring up children in Dubai, establish private schools and even open businesses.
Dubai and its neighbors have long accepted that without foreign workers, the country would not have achieved its tremendous prosperity. There, no government minister would excoriate these foreign residents or define them as a cancer in the country’s heart.
By Zvi Bar'el