Education cost is rising out of reach

As pupils prepare for the start of class, some are left behind as families struggle with living expenses and the soaring cost of school fees.

Mushtaq Ur Rahman, an expatriate from Pakistan, is postponing his daughter's enrolment because of high fees.

Education costs have risen so much that some parents have been forced to delay the entry of their children into school. One father living in Abu Dhabi said he was unable to enrol both his children at school this summer because the costs were too high. Instead, Mushtaq Ur Rahman, 45, from Pakistan, is postponing enrolment for his second daughter to allow him time to save up for the fees and other costs.

Mr Rahman recently paid Dh5,500 (US$1,500) in tuition fees and transport for his elder daughter, Alaina, nine, but cannot afford similar costs for his other child, Kashmala, aged four. Alaina's annual fees have increased to about Dh10,000 from Dh8,000 last year. Mr Rahman will also have to pay about Dh8,000 annually when Kashmala starts school. Transport costs, he said, had risen by more than a fifth in the past year.

"I cannot pay for two at a time because of the increase. I am not in a position to pay for the second. I will delay her for two to three months," he said. He added that it was "very difficult" to find affordable accommodation, and this was compounding the problem of high school costs. Rents in Abu Dhabi have shot up by an average of 49 per cent since last year, with a lack of supply allowing landlords to impose steep increases.

In Dubai, rents have surged more than one-fifth over the past year on the back of even heavier growth in previous years. Also struggling to cope is Bose Baby, 41, an Indian expatriate with two sons, aged 12 years and six months. He is unable to save any money. "There is less salary, but the expenses are too much. It's very difficult for medium-level people to afford," said Mr Baby, who earns Dh4,500 a month as a sales executive.

He said the quality of uniforms was low given the price and he was forced to pay above the market rate for clothing because his elder son's school required parents to buy them from a particular store. "They have their own monopoly. You have to go to the particular store," he said. "You cannot save. The only thing is that we're together. That's the only thing we have. You have a happy family life, but other tensions are there."

Paying school fees for her sons Daniyal, 15, Bilal, 13, and Shehryar, 11, was "much too difficult" for Seema Majeed, 36, from Pakistan. "Prices are so high. It is so expensive," she said, adding that clothing and books were also costly. "Shirts are about Dh90 and Dh95 this year. Last year, they were Dh75. And textbooks are so much [more] expensive. One book costs Dh350 or Dh400," she said. Sarah Moore, 34, from Ireland, said nursery fees for her daughter, Aaliyah, three, had increased between 10 to 15 per cent in the past year, and for her other daughter, Aisha, two, the rise was 20 per cent.

"I think because everything is rising, people are struggling," she said. "It's fine if your company is covering it, but more and more companies are just giving an allowance. "Fees seem to be going up and up and because there's such demand for places, you have no choice but to pay the extra." Mrs Moore has lived in the UAE for the past 10 years, but said steep increases had happened only in the past two years.

"Everything, fees and accommodation, has gone up very quickly," she said. However, she said compared with private schools in the UK, fees here were reasonable. * The National