It will take some time to sift through the financial facts that led to the closing this week of St Andrews School in Dubai. School officials say the managing director, Christopher Reynolds, drained St Andrews' accounts before fleeing the country; Mr Reynolds denies that. Yet with debts of Dh890,000, and only petty cash remaining in the till, authorities will have their hands full managing the school's collapse.
One fact at least is not in dispute, even at this early juncture: special- needs children are the ones who will lose the most. The closing of St Andrews, one of Dubai's most expensive institutions (Dh20,000 or more per term) and one dedicated entirely to special-needs students, shows just how precarious the situation in this country is for expatriate students with learning disabilities.
As parents told The National this week, the burden of the school's collapse will fall most heavily on the children. "The pain is not for us," said a parent of a 5-year-old. "It's for my son, because he was conditioned that he's going to school and now the school is closed."
The academic year has already started, and so the school's 53 former pupils need immediate help finding new places. Parents and teachers are rallying to find a temporary solution. But they face long odds against recovering their money and finding anything like the type of education that vanished so suddenly.
Historically, the UAE's for-profit schools have done a dismal job of integrating special-needs students. Many schools simply refuse admission to children with autism, social disorders, physical handicaps or other conditions that make learning a challenge.
Around the world the responsibility for educating children who need extra help usually falls on the state. In the UAE, where expatriates and their employers must pay for education, there is a distinct shortage of services of all types for expatriate children with learning disabilities - and for expatriate adults with physical handicaps, for that matter.
As the country continues to develop, mechanisms of mutual support will surely emerge to meet these needs. In the meantime, however, a few stopgap steps suggest themselves, such as better government monitoring of all private schools, and greater parental vigilance about schools' legal and financial status. Perhaps it is even time to consider rules requiring private schools to allocate places for special-needs children.
Results:
Men’s wheelchair 200m T34: 1. Walid Ktila (TUN) 27.14; 2. Mohammed Al Hammadi (UAE) 27.81; 3. Rheed McCracken (AUS) 27.81.
Company Profile
Founders: Tamara Hachem and Yazid Erman
Based: Dubai
Launched: September 2019
Sector: health technology
Stage: seed
Investors: Oman Technology Fund, angel investor and grants from Sharjah's Sheraa and Ma'an Abu Dhabi
EMERGENCY PHONE NUMBERS
Estijaba – 8001717 – number to call to request coronavirus testing
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Emirates airline – 600555555
Etihad Airways – 600555666
Ambulance – 998
Knowledge and Human Development Authority – 8005432 ext. 4 for Covid-19 queries
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Match info
Uefa Nations League Group B:
England v Spain, Saturday, 11.45pm (UAE)
Have you been targeted?
Tuan Phan of SimplyFI.org lists five signs you have been mis-sold to:
1. Your pension fund has been placed inside an offshore insurance wrapper with a hefty upfront commission.
2. The money has been transferred into a structured note. These products have high upfront, recurring commission and should never be in a pension account.
3. You have also been sold investment funds with an upfront initial charge of around 5 per cent. ETFs, for example, have no upfront charges.
4. The adviser charges a 1 per cent charge for managing your assets. They are being paid for doing nothing. They have already claimed massive amounts in hidden upfront commission.
5. Total annual management cost for your pension account is 2 per cent or more, including platform, underlying fund and advice charges.
The Case For Trump
By Victor Davis Hanson
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Our legal consultants
Name: Hassan Mohsen Elhais
Position: legal consultant with Al Rowaad Advocates and Legal Consultants.
Tips for job-seekers
- Do not submit your application through the Easy Apply button on LinkedIn. Employers receive between 600 and 800 replies for each job advert on the platform. If you are the right fit for a job, connect to a relevant person in the company on LinkedIn and send them a direct message.
- Make sure you are an exact fit for the job advertised. If you are an HR manager with five years’ experience in retail and the job requires a similar candidate with five years’ experience in consumer, you should apply. But if you have no experience in HR, do not apply for the job.
David Mackenzie, founder of recruitment agency Mackenzie Jones Middle East
History's medical milestones
1799 - First small pox vaccine administered
1846 - First public demonstration of anaesthesia in surgery
1861 - Louis Pasteur published his germ theory which proved that bacteria caused diseases
1895 - Discovery of x-rays
1923 - Heart valve surgery performed successfully for first time
1928 - Alexander Fleming discovers penicillin
1953 - Structure of DNA discovered
1952 - First organ transplant - a kidney - takes place
1954 - Clinical trials of birth control pill
1979 - MRI, or magnetic resonance imaging, scanned used to diagnose illness and injury.
1998 - The first adult live-donor liver transplant is carried out