26 February 2017
By Mohammed Osman

As many as 38 private schools and kindergartens have got permission from the Ministry of Education and Higher Education to increase their fees in the next academic year (2017/18.), a senior official said yesterday.

A total of 127 schools and kindergartens had sought permission to hike their fees but about 70% of the requests have been rejected, said Hamad Al Ghali, Director of Private Schools Licensing at the Ministry. 

"Almost 50% of the total private schools and KGs (260) had sought permission for fee increase. The Ministry has given approval to only 38 private kindergartens and schools while the rate of fee increase varies from 1 to 15%," said Al Ghali, addressing a press conference yesterday.

He said that requests from 89 schools which representing 70% of the total applications have been rejected. 

The press conference at the ministry headquarters was to announce the start of admissions in private kindergartens and schools in Qatar.

"Admissions in private kindergartens and schools will start on March 1 and continue until October 12 this year, while reservation of seats will start from March 1 and end on May 1," according to a circular issued to all schools.  

Al Ghali said that changes in fees are announced well before the beginning of admissions. "Students whose admission procedures are delayed due to processing of residency permit will be allowed to get registered by the end of January 2018," said Al Ghali.

The schools that got approval to hike the fees include the MES Indian School, The English Modern School, Doha College, Philippine International School, Sudanese School, Palestinian School, and Doha International School. 

Al Ghali said that only six KGs were allowed to increase fees by 15%, 14 KGs and schools by 3%, four schools by 8%, three KGs by 9%, one KG and one school by 4% and four KGs by 14%, 12 %, 11% and 5%. 

One school has been given permission to increase fee by 6.6 percent and two by 7 percent. 

Al Ghali said that the Ministry went through a four-step process to give the approval. First, applications were studied by a specialised administrative team at the office of private schools licensing, then by financial team and their report was presented to the committee of private schools. 

This committee is one of the largest committees in the Ministry and headed by undersecretary of the Ministry, and has directors of departments and consultants as members, said Al Ghali, noting that the final step was approval by the Minister. 

Regarding school vouchers, Al Ghali said that the competent department at the ministry was still evaluating some applications and the result will be announced after they take a decision. 

The ministry had announced receiving applications for fee increase from private kindergartens and schools for the academic year 2017/2018 last December and this was applicable to schools established at least four years ago. Private kindergartens and schools seeking permission to increase fees are required to submit their financial reports of the past four years online in Arabic Language and provide with the necessary documents.

All applications that came after the deadline were rejected, as well applications that did not fulfill the requirements, or if the financial report was found lacking credibility or accuracy. 

© The Peninsula 2017