By CHEN Qiongye
Jenny is an educational consultant from Singapore who has lived in Dubai for 15 years. Not long after she settled here, she started K12 consultancy. Since then she has helped more than 1,000 students to enroll in Dubai schools, from kindergarten to research institutes.
No cheap options
Before 2015, most of Jenny's clients were children whose parents worked in Dubai, but today parents from China are keen to send their kids there. A third of jenny’s applications this year are from students now studying at international schools in China.
SU Jian went to Dubai in early 2020 to see some apartments she had bought and decided to stay, with her husband and children. Public schools in Dubai are free but only take local students. Classes are taught in Arabic. Dubai’s 200 private schools take anyone who can afford the tuition. Most are taught in English, in both British and American curricula.
Su chose North London International School for her kids. The annual fees for both were about 300,000 yuan (US$41,000). The international school back in Shanghai was twice that. “The more expensive is not necessarily better,” she said.
In China, most so-called international schools have a mostly Chinese student body. Jenny said international schools in Dubai are not only cheaper, but they also offer a more diverse environment.
However, Dubai does not issue student visas to those under 18, so the students can only attend school there if their parents have Dubai residency. “The parents must either buy homes in Dubai,” said Jenny, “or get a working visa.”
Neither option is cheap.
City of strangers
A 2019 demographic census showed that of Dubai’s 3.3 million people, only 17 percent were locals. The 300,000 Chinese accounted for around 10 percent of the population. Four out of every 10 Dubai residents are Indian. Tiger parenting is common.
“Both Chinese and Indians are always looking for off-campus academic classes but there isn’t much choice,” she said. “European parents don’t bother.”
Su is looking for an art teacher. She dreams of her little daughter going to a top art college someday. “But the off-campus schools here are mostly substandard, a far cry from the ones in China,” said the picky parent.
The most common off-campus classes in Dubai are in Chinese. In 2020, with the support of both the Dubai and China governments, the Chinese School of Dubai was founded with teachers from top public schools in China. A seat in its weekend class is highly prized.
There are currently more than 4,000 Chinese enterprises in Dubai, with US$9.3 billion (67 billion yuan) invested.
“People think everything here is expensive, but actually the housing price in Dubai is not that high,” Su said. “The price of a downtown apartment is 25 percent of Shanghai.”
