Qatar’s Education Ministry receives 57 applications for opening of new schools

Qatar’s Ministry of Education and Higher Education has received 57 new applications for licenses to operate private schools in the country during the 2019-20 academic year.

Hamad Al Ghali, Director of Licensing of Private Schools at the Ministry of Education and Higher Education, said the applications will now be scrutinised carefully to assess whether they conform to the requirements and standards set by the department.

Once this is done, the deserving applications will be approved, said Al Ghali, according to The Peninsula.

He said the Education Ministry’s licensing department had received applications for ten national schools, 14 American schools, 21 British schools, seven Indian schools and four Finnish, French, Canadian and Egyptian schools.

The Education Ministry, in cooperation with the Ministry of Commerce and Industry, has so far allocated 11 plots of land to investors for establishing private schools, reported Qatar Tribune.

Al Ghali said the land would be allocated through tenders, adding that six plots had already been handed over to investors for setting up schools offering British and Indian curricula within two years. These schools are expected to see investments worth QR750m.

Meanwhile, the applications from three other investors are currently under consideration. There are also plans to lease government buildings to the private sector for operating schools with different curricula, to stimulate private sector participation in economic and educational development projects.

“In the Ministry of Education, we’ve decided to exempt all private schools from electricity, water and customs clearance fees to encourage investment in this sector,” Al Ghali said.

He said the minimum requirement for setting up a kindergarten is that the building must be at least 1,250SqM and for primary, it should be 2,750SqM.

For schools that have both kindergarten and primary, the building must be not less than 4,000SqM, for preparatory or secondary it is 3,500SqM, and for schools, with all stages, the building must not be less than 9,500SqM.

When asked about the collection of fees during registration, the director clarified that the “tuition fees could be collected at the beginning of each semester and not during registration. During registration, schools can charge a seat fee of between QR2,000 and QR3,000, which should be refunded or deducted from tuition fees later.”

“We also cautioned all schools do not ask for post-dated cheques from parents during the registration period. The parent is not obliged to pay the expenses either in cash or bank cheque until the beginning of the study,” he added.

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