GEMS school fee increase

[shawarma]

Note this post dates from 14 November 2006, not 2007 (post dates were changed after a forum update).

GEMS schools have been getting a good bit of publicity the past couple of weeks with their stupendous idea of requiring teachers to wear uniforms, and now a fees increase. What's possibly unfair to GEMS though is that many other schools will probably be raising fees, but GEMS gets the headline in the newspaper.

The 7 Days newspaper reported on the fees hike on Tuesday 14 November 2006. A summary is:

• Dubai Modern High School and Dubai American Academy fees to increase by 5-15% from January 2007. No information about other GEMS school fee increases (there are 22 GEMS schools in the UAE)
• KG fees will increase by 15%, grades 1-5 by 10%, and grades 6-12 by 12-15%
• The director of communications at GEMS, Monica Harter, said to 7DAYS “Parents were informed of the increases back in June and were recently provided with more formal information. As the cost of living in Dubai spirals, the cost of recruiting and retaining teachers of the highest calibre also rises. Dubai is still a very attractive destination for teaching but the industry is highly competitive and we need to be able to provide an attractive teaching package.”
• 7 Days obtained a couple of comments from parents, from “I think it’s worth the extra.” to “We are already paying a lot of money”
• Maximum increase is 20% once every three years subject to approval by the Ministry of Education (MOE)

[shawarma]

Note this post dates from 20 December 2006, not 2007 (posting date went awry after a forum upgrade)

Following the November 2006 fees increase news (previous topic added to this one - see first post), more GEMS Dubai schools were up for a 70% increase in school fees. There was a good radio show on 20 December 2006 on Dubai Eye (a Dubai radio station) on 103.8 FM with Chris and Nanette and a flood of sms messages talking about the school fees hike announced by GEMS (Global Education Management System - they own or manage 22 schools in the UAE) in letters to parents this week. One lady phoned in and was scathing about the quality of service provided by GEMS. A few points to note.

• GEMS were going to increase fees by 15% in 2007 at MHS Dubai and DAA according to a November 2006 report from 7 Days.
• Ministry of Education criteria are that 20% school fees increase is the maximum - every two years, and with MoE approval.
• GEMS claim they need more money to increase teacher salaries since they are losing good teachers to other schools (60 left Wesminster last year apparently). This was contradicted on Dubai Eye this morning with parents saying no teachers left Winchester/Westminster.
• Apparently the Education Minister has some connection to GEMs (board of directors, sponsor?).
• GEMS claim they have notified the MoE and are in discussion with them regarding approval.
• Dubai Eye had many many texts coming in complaining about the quality of GEMS education, and complaining they did not deliver on promised facilities eg no swimming pool at Winchester.
• To be fair, Dubai Eye also had a few messages praising the high quality of education at some of the GEMS schools.
• Principal of Winchester School (Raminder Singh?) talked to radio in phone interview defending fees hike.
• A GEMS representative - Monica Harter, the Corporate Communications Director - was also interviewed on air and used words like "under consideration", "committees", "due process", "negotiation", "not able to comment on specific details". The interview was followed by many more messages from listeners admiring her political savvy (or was that 'deriding').
• Westminster School is one of the 50 best schools in the world according to Ms Harter and David Morrison (principal of Westminster School). When asked about it on Dubai Eye, Ms Harter did not say who gave the school that rating. She did say something about it being related to exam assessment.

Here's a couple of snippets from various press articles in the Gulf News today (20 December 2006)...

• Parents were up in arms yesterday when seven schools in the UAE opted to go in for a fee hike ranging from 55 per cent to 70 per cent.
• “The ministry has not been notified about the hike. Some of these schools are not allowed to ask for a hike in fee structure. As per the ministry regulations a fee revision is only allowed every three years. The maximum increase should not be more than 20 per cent,” said a ministry official.
• The circular from the Cambridge International School reads “In order for us to enhance teachers’ salaries, needs, increased operating costs and continue to improve on our high standards, tuition fees will increase by 30 per cent from January 2007 and a further 25 per cent at the beginning of next academic year in September 2007.”
• “We received complaints from parents whose children study in seven different schools in Dubai regarding fee hike,” said Abdul Rehman Yousef, head of the private school licensing section at the Dubai Education Zone. “We have to investigate the issue and if it turns out to be true then it will be considered as a violation. In such cases the schools will have to pay a Dh10,000 fine,” he added.
• “I am sure that the schools did not get the permission to implement the fee hike. It is ridiculous. It was only last year that the schools increased their fees. The ministry should come down heavily on these schools,” said another parent whose two children attend a private school in Dubai.

Emirates Today had the news on the first page...

• The five schools - the Westminster School, the Winchester School, Manchester Cambridge School, Dubai American School, and Modern School - are all run by GEMS.
• The increase has already been postponed once by the Ministry of Education, who acted after complaints from worried parents.
• "Westminister School has earned the right to be one of the best 50 schools in the world. The fee increase is necessary to retain and attract professionally qualified staff. The school lost around 60 teachers because they were offered similar positions in other schools with higher salaries," Mr Morrison said.

So what do you think ?

[shawarma]

Dubai needs schools - and will need more for the forseeable future as the population increases. GEMS is a profit making organisation. If they can't make a decent profit, they'll stop building schools and do something else with their money. If they don't build and run schools, who will?

There are non-profit schools in Dubai, but not enough of them. How do you encourage people to build more of them?

[shawarma]

Emirates Today reports that a Dubai Education Council (DEC) official says the fee increases are invalid. I don't know what the connection is between the Dubai Education Council (DEC) and the Ministry of Education (MoE) is. There was talk earlier this week that the head of the MoE or someone near the top was also on the board of directors of GEMS. ET have done well to collect a few comments from the chairman of the DEC - and quite blunt comments too. Parents will be saying good job.

The comment about school fees increases should be before the start of the academic year to give parents the opportunity to shift students is an important one. Question is, what are GEMS going to do now? If they're not profitable, they'll have to shut down unprofitable parts of the business - just like any profit making business - or risk going broke. It would be very interesting to hear what sort of babble Monica Harper would have about this news. I wonder if Dubai Eye can get her on the radio again...

A summary of the report in Emirates Today 23 December 2006:

• “There are rules that govern fee increases, including the DEC’s approval, and raises should be announced at the beginning of the school year and not in the middle,” said the Chairman of the Dubai Education Council (DEC), Ahmad bin Byat. He also reportedly said it was illegal to increase school fees in the middle of an academic year, and apparently said the fee increase was “blackmail” and “It is an illegal measure”.
• The GEMS Corporate Communications Director, Monica Harter, said that parents and the Ministry of Education had been informed, but did not say if the ministry had approved the increases.
• Further comments from the DEC Chairman were “DEC approval is a precondition for increasing fees, provided that the rise is announced before the start of the academic year to enable parents to decide whether to keep their children in [those] schools or to look for alternatives,” and the schools fee increase is “non-binding to parents since it is illegal ... The management has not followed the legal steps that control fee increases; they have not written an official letter to the private schools’ section of the DEC. Neither has it obtained an official approval from the DEC. Consequently, the increase approved by the schools is null and void and non-binding. Parents should refrain from paying,”
• There was a report in the previous week from ET that GEMS had announced fees increases of up to 70% for Dubai American School (presumably DAA), Manchester Cambridge School (presumably Cambridge IS), the Modern School (presumably Dubai MHS), Westminster School, and Winchester School.
• The fees increases would be in two tranches of 35% in January 2007 and 35% again in September 2007, according to one principal, who was also saying he'd lost 60% of his staff to schools offering higher salaries.

[shawarma]

Looks like a potential disagreement brewing between the Dubai Education Council (DEC) and the Ministry of Education (MOE). GEMS seem to think the MOE is fine with the fees increase, but it doesn't sound like GEMS asked the DEC. Summary of report in 7 Days Sunday 24 December 2006:

• “This will affect our children, and so we will be forced to pay,” said a parent of children at Westminster School to 7Days
• “We informed the parents six months in advance. We have gone through the Ministry of Education and we have assurances from them,” said Monica Harter, director of corporate communications at GEMS, but she didn't say whether or not GEMS had contacted the Dubai Education Council (DEC) about approval for the fees hikes

[shawarma]

Emirates Today found some "disgruntled teachers" who were not happy with their pay. But Monica Harter, the GEMS director of blah blah blah is planning to regruntle those teachers - she says GEMS teachers will be getting a decent salary increase next year. Summary of Emirates Today report 25 December 2006 ...

• “My school raised the fees by 30 per cent beginning this academic year saying they will revise our pay scales.When the classes started after summer, we were disappointed as there was no announcement to the effect,” according to an Indian teacher at one Dubai GEMS school (who wanted to remain anonymous). “I started off with a pay of Dh1,800 some 17 years back and today what I get is something around Dh2,400. That shows the managements’ attitude when it comes to paying their teachers,”
• Ms Harter said that teacher salaries could not be compared across schools with fees of AED 4,500-6,000 versus schools with fees of over AED 25,000 (British and American schools versus Indian and other Asian schools reportedly) ... “However, we recognise that the general inflation and rise in the cost of living have affected our teachers badly, and by January, GEMS will be announcing a pay revision that is going to be well beyond the regular annual increment that we offer to our teachers,”
• Another Indian school science teacher in Dubai said “My husband is also a teacher and together our monthly salaries will add up to Dh5,400 only. The cost of living has gone up so much that we are surviving on loans and credit card [facilities],” and apparently said many teachers do private tuition in Dubai to earn extra cash “I know teachers who make amounts to the tune of Dh15,000 and more by giving tuitions. The authorities have no right to ban tuitions without considering the deplorable pay scales of the teachers,”

[shawarma]

Now we get some comments from the Ministry of Education (MOE) that appear to contradict what Ms Harper of GEMS says. Or not. Did she actually say the MOE approved the fees increase, or just that GEMS had informed them? There appears to be a "misunderstanding". I dunno, some of these statements sounded fairly clear to me. When I read them again, they still seem unambiguous, Summary of report in 7 Days 25 December 06...

• “A three year fee revision is acceptable, but only up to 20 per cent, ... We hear from the media that some schools are increasing fees up to 70 per cent, which is against the law ... Such revision of fees can be done only after the authorities inspect the claim and are convinced that the revision is justified,” - according to a senior MOE official who wanted to remain unidentified, as reported by 7 Days. The same official said the claim that GEMS had received MOE approval for its fees increase was “not true”.
• There were no comments from the DEC about Mr Bin Byat's original statements, and no comments from GEMS

[shawarma]

The Dubai Education Council (DEC) is the organisation that decides on school fees increases according to the Dr Hanif Hassan, the minister of education, as reported in the Gulf News 27 December 2006. Although apparently there was a "senior official" at the MOE who says they did give verbal approval for the GEMS schools fee increases. That's all quite clever then. Nobody loses too much face, everyone is correct in what they said, and the buck, or dirham, has been passed nicely on to the DEC. Who probably knew nothing about it a week ago. What will they do now though?

• "It is in the hands of the Dubai Education Council," said Dr Hanif Hassan
• According to a senior MOE official there was a meeting with GEMS in August 2006 when verbal approval for the raise was given, but then responsibility for fees shifted to the Dubai Education Council based on an a agreement between the MOE and DEC on 17 October 2006
• A previous GEMS statement was "we have received verbal assurances from ministry officials. We have had ongoing dialogue with the ministry and they are aware of the predicament that schools face; acceleration of operating costs, including rocketing rents, and an increased emphasis on quality teacher recruitment and retention".

[shawarma]

The saga continues, the next day in the Gulf News (28 December 2006) GEMS schools are saying they'll postpone a decision on school fees increases until the DEC does a review. Well, there probably wasn't much else they could do. But some interesting spin going on here... The GN reports that GEMS will wait until they're informed of a "new implementation date" But who actually said that? Gulf News or GEMS? The DEC official wasn't talking about a "new implementation date" the other day, he was talking about parents not paying the increase . Gulf News comment reads as (but the report didn't quote directly from the GEMS statement):

The Gems statement yesterday said in light of that announcement the education group will postpone implementation of the increases until the council concludes its reviews, and informs it of a new implementation date. The statement said following escalating operating costs, Gems initiated dialogue with the ministry in early 2006.

The schools named in the Gulf News were the same as previously mentioned, but with the names that are more familiar to most people i.e. DAA, DMHS, and CIS.

[shawarma]

Emirates Today (07 January 2007) says the plan by GEMS to raise school fees is shelved until December 2007, which probably means there'll be another argument or discussion then. GEMS apparently says the increase will be implemented then. There's no quote from GEMS, and there's no quote or comment from the Dubai Education Council. According to previous comments from the DEC, any increases should be limited to 15% or 20%. What would you do at the end of this academic year then as a parent? Stay at a GEMS school and know you'll get a whacking great increase? Or move to another school which says there won't be any fee increase but then later on has one anyway?

GEMS now of course has a perfect comeback for any teachers looking for a pay increase - they can say they tried to get more money for their teachers but were shot down in flames. Never mind that it seems unlikely teachers would have seen any of that money anyway ...

Emirates Today reported that "To the great relief of many parents, the GEMS management has decided to shelve the plan for a 50-to-70 per cent fee hike in five of its schools until December this year. A spokesperson for the Global Education Management System said, they are postponing the implementation of the fee increase until the year-end." ET then got comments from some parents:

• “We don’t want to pay up an exorbitant amount as school fees.”
• “We hope the authorities resolve the issue once the schools reopen,” (mother of two children at Dubai Modern High School)
• “A 70 per cent hike is too much to afford.”
• “The Gems management is taking such unpopular decisions because they are a monopoly, owning the largest number of private educational institutions in the UAE,”