Dubai-based investor in education plans to open Gems World Academy next year for hundreds of Etoy students in the canton of Vaud. The school will teach mostly in English the children of international workers in the Lake Geneva region. Gems Education, the largest owner of private schools in the world, pride itself on having classy educational and sporting facilities. Its first school in continental Europe will be the Etoy school in Switzerland.
Gems Education marketing manager for Europe told regional media that the whole project including the building, cost 162 million Swiss Francs. The construction began in 2011 and by summer 2013 it would be complete and ready for the academic year. According to the plan, around 400 students between 3 and 14 will start in September. The International Baccalaureate programme will expand the number to 1,000 with students aged 15 to 18.
Gems announced the school would include a radio station, television studio, music technology lab, wireless multi-device access, a “world language learning centre” and a high-tech library. Also a multi-use sports centre would be completed in 2014.
The main building of the new school is only 200 metres from the Etoy train station and besides other environmental features uses geothermal heating.
Gems Education expands rapidly in Europe, where it announced nearly ten upcoming schools in the United Kingdom. British educators are not very welcoming to a new foreign investor in the sector and earlier opposed the slightly cheaper pricing policies that Gems announced it would implement. However, with British education ridiculously expensive, it seems there is a room for a new middle-priced entrant in the private education sector. Swiss education is even more expensive than the British one, as Switzerland enjoys highest living and financial security status worldwide.
