Two schools with 100s of pupils to be shut in Abu Dhabi

The villa schools, which jointly educate close to 700 pupils, will be shut in April and July.

ABU DHABI // Closure dates for two more villa schools in the capital have been confirmed by the education authority.

The Private Cooperation School, which educates 343 pupils, will be shut on April 1 and My Private Kindergarten, with 338 pupils, will be closed on July 7, the Abu Dhabi Education Council (Adec) has said.

The news was confirmed by Dr Mugheer Khamis Al Khaili, director general of Adec, in an interview with The National's Arabic language sister newspaper, Al Ittihad.

He said Adec had reduced the number of schools operating out of villas from 72 with 45,000 pupils in 2008 to 69 with 43,000 students in 2009. By last year, the number was down to 43 schools with 31,800 students. This year, 37 school villas are operational with 24,000 students including 2,661 Emirati students.

Adec has offered substantial support to villa schools, according to Hamad Al Dhaheri, executive director of the private education sector. He said they were currently looking into assigning villa school operators unused public school buildings. Only establishments that have successfully managed private schools in the past would be given public school buildings.

The private education sector in Abu Dhabi has registered an annual growth rate of 5 per cent in recent years and Adec said it plants to expand schooling options to meet the demand.

Adec said plans were under way to open two Indian curriculum schools in Mohammed bin Zayed City by next year: Bright Riders with space for 617 pupils and The Modern Indian Scientific School with space for 621. It has also promised two international curriculum schools will open in Khalifa City A: Al Shohub School (British curriculum) with 1,200 spaces and Al Rawafid Private School (US curriculum) with 1,553 students.

CORRECTION: This article was updated to reflect the correct spelling of Al Shohub School, which will have a new capacity of 1,200 pupils when it moves to Khalifa City A in the coming academic year.