Nowadays, Dubai-based parents who don’t need the help of private tutors should consider themselves very lucky. Unfortunately, judging from the bellow international average results of Dubai’s students in math registered by the end of 2012, the number of the fortunate parents should not be that impressive.
After the summer holiday, the back-to-school madness is in a full swing. Most of Dubai’s children are already enrolled into the private schools. Parents had no choice, but to accept the increase of tuition fees and all additional costs. School uniforms have become more expensive by five or ten percent this academic year. The transportation cost is also higher, although the school busses and their routes remain the same in most of the cases.
However, as a nasty surprise may come to you the increase in prices of after school activities and private tuition. The cost of private tutoring is skyrocketing proportionally to the cost of consumer products and services, not to mention the property prices rise.
For example, the Tutoring Center in Dubai announced a monthly fee of 1,800 Dirhams for 2 sessions a week and 2,400 Dirhams for 3 sessions a week, excluding a registration fee of 420 Dirhams. At DUCTAC Art Centre, a music video making course is priced at 2000 Dirhams for two sessions in two consecutive weeks.
As your landlord may explain to you that now the talks of rising property prices are driving rents upwards, because the return of investment for property owners is greatly reduced due to the tremendous availability of residential units, a new breed of educators justifies its pricing policies with the rising living cost.
However, it seems not that many parents accept demands for high fees. Even the Atlantis very interactive summer camp remained unbooked during the past summer, because it was priced at 2,200 a week while a few years back was 600 or 800 Dirhams.
The big questions are: Is it worth it and can you afford it?
