By Joseph Varghese/Staff Reporter
To overcome the school admission woes of the Indian community in Qatar, the Supreme Education Council (SEC) has given license for six new schools, a senior official said.
“We expect that these schools will complete the documentation work well on time so that they can start from September this year," Aysha al-Hashemi, institute assistant director for Private Schools Affairs, Education Institute, SEC, told a press conference.
Some of the new schools will have only KG classes while others will have primary classes and middle level classes too. When asked about the admission difficulties in Indian schools, the official maintained that SEC is concerned about the issue and is exploring several options.
“We have closed admissions in some schools as they are above their capacity. But we have alternatives for the admission problems. Every parent who comes to SEC, is directed to a particular school.”
“The good news is that some of the schools where we have restricted admissions are planning to open branch campuses. This will solve most of the existing problem. One of the biggest schools where we have stopped admission will start a branch campus soon for KG and primary classes which in all likelihood will happen before September.”
Al- Hashemi also revealed that there are currently a total of 145,252 students at 154 private schools in the country, according to the recently updated statistics of the SEC.
“Out of this, 117,973 students are non- Qataris and 27,409 are Qataris. There are 86 private kindergartens in the country, with a total number of 13,005 students. Some 2,010 of them are Qataris and 10,995 of them are non-Qataris.”
This takes the total number of pupils at private schools and kindergartens in the country to 158,357, out of them 29,419 are Qataris and 128,938 non-Qataris.
