Dubai - MENA Herald: Market research firm, YouGov today revealed that 52% of respondents, comprising of both students and parents, would consider enrolling into a boarding school in Dubai. The results show that the Emirate is well placed to offer boarding facilities to families (79%) both living in the UAE and from abroad based on the education quality, climate and extra-curricular opportunities for additional personal development.
The survey showed that the concept of boarding encourages students to build confidence, leadership skills and independence (51% of respondents) and offers additional ways to develop a long-term, tightly-knit network globally that will help build future career development (55%).
Boarding at school is a familiar concept in Europe that is widely accepted around the world with families sending their children away to top boarding schools to gain a good education as well as experiencing the associated benefits of being away from home including organisation, self-confidence, self-sufficiency, empathy and responsibility.
Dubai has the convenience of being geographically very accessible, providing parents with the option of allowing children to experience world-class boarding without sending them to the more conventional boarding destinations. Dubai also has great weather, great outdoor activities for children and is considered a safe city, especially for young people, which plays a massive part in parents’ decision making.
SISD’s Head of School and Swiss national, Beat Sommer, explained, “At SISD, we have evaluated carefully the needs of our parents and students. The YouGov survey has confirmed that Dubai is viewed as an ideal location for many living in Saudi Arabia,
Iran, Russia, Kazakhstan and even here in the UAE with 79% acknowledging Dubai as a good place to send children to boarding school.”
“We offer academic excellence through the International Baccalaureate set in context of a multi-lingual environment that develops skills of empathy, self-sufficiency and responsibility to develop confident, enthusiastic future generations. Our aim is to inspire and develop life-long leaders, and at the same time support the UAE leadership goal to build a knowledge-based community.”
In line with the Ministry of Education’s Strategy 2020, to develop a globally competitive education system, the survey only reinforces this commitment to providing students with a spectrum of opportunities to nurture tomorrow’s future leaders.
SISD is opening its boarding facility from September 2017 with state of the art facilities to enable children from the UAE and abroad to experience outstanding, multi-lingual education – academic excellence and personal growth – regardless of location. There is now an option for high quality, Swiss boarding for parents within a few hours flight.
The boarding school fees for grades 6-8 and 9-10 will be 180,000 AED and 192,000 AED respectively for the first full year. This is all-inclusive of the following: accommodation, school fees, visa, all meals and snacks, medical insurance, after-school activities, uniform, airport transfer and evening tuition. Weekly boarding fees for grades 6-8 and 9-10 will be 150,400 AED and 162,400 AED respectively.
