DOHA: The Supreme Education Council (SEC) is working on a plan to classify the private schools in the country to three categories based on a set of criteria, a member of the Central Municipal Council (CMC) has said.
The 200 plus schools will be divided into A, B, C categories for better assessment and monitoring.
This process is expected to be completed by May this year, a local Arabic daily reported yesterday, quoting Jassim Al Malki, CMC’s Vice-President and Head of its Services and Public Utilities committee. The classification will be based on specific criteria such as the school building, curriculum and academic staff, said Al Malki. The Supreme Education Council (SEC) had earlier announced plans to classify the private schools based on their academic standards and performance.
They are broadly divided into community schools (catering to specific expatriate communities) and international schools but this classification does not address the wide variations in fees and academic standards between the schools falling in the two categories.
The CMC recently hosted the director of the private schools office at SEC, who responded to complaints from the Council about increasing private school fees. Any school that announces a fee hike without SEC approval will face stern action, including a cancellation of their licence, the SEC was told during the meeting.
The SEC official denied reports that some schools were allowed to raise their fees by up to 50 percent, insisting that the approved hike was between five to 15 percent. Of the 130 schools that sought permission for a fee hike, 18 had been given permission during the current academic year, it was explained.
Al Malki said that the CMC had proposed to revise the educational voucher programme for Qatari students in private schools to include more schools and more types of fees.
The vouchers worth QR28,000 each is now restricted to tuition fees, text book fees and transport fees and are applied only in 57 private schools.
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