Emaar Chairman Mohamed Alabbar Has Said What We Are All Thinking About School Fees In The Middle East

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One subject that almost every parent in the region has an opinion on is school fees. Private school fees have gone up to ridiculous amounts and are continuing to grow at ridiculous rates. This is causing the less wealthy families to have to exclude their children from the education system, as warned by Emaar Group chairman, Mohamed Alabbar. The UAE businessman has questioned the ethics of privatised education systems and said extortionately high private school fees are responsible for the lack of preparation for young people into the job market. He also says that the fees are to blame for a lack of access for students into high quality education. 

Alabbar said: “I am very close to private educators. They suck the life out of the fees.”

He added: “I’m not sure if education should really be privatised. I know private schools have good discipline. But some of these fees – how can any human being pay like this?

“So it hurts, it hurts me that the guy who needs the most help, who can’t even afford to pay AED2,000 [$500 per year]…He’s the guy we need to help.

“[The person] who can pay AED50,000, well, I don’t care, he can send his kids to school in London if he wishes. But what about that guy with seven kids who can’t afford to pay even AED1,000 for their education. That’s where the pain is.”

The biggest obstacle facing young Arabs in the Middle East was cited on Wednesday as unemployment. The survey concluded that more than one-third stated that unemployment was their greatest concern – higher than the cost of living and terrorist threats. Only half of the young Arabs surveyed said they felt confident in the government’s ability to deal with youth unemployment.

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