With just three months to go for the start of the new academic year at Indian community schools, many expatriates from the south Asian country are finding it hard to secure admission for their children in view of the limited availability of seats.
Officials of several Indian schools have confirmed that the demand is several times higher than the number of seats available.
Last year, too, a similar rush for seats was witnessed as the new academic session approached. Following instructions from the Supreme Education Council (SEC) to bring down class sizes to reasonable levels, schools across the country had to curtail fresh admissions.
Among those seeking fresh admission this year are students who were enrolled in other schools, often with much higher fees than the Indian ones, last year. Their parents had hoped that the situation would improve this year and they would get their children admitted to a school of their choice, one that would also suit their budget.
However, as they have realised, securing a seat in any of the Indian schools is likely to be an uphill task this time as well.
There is no news yet of any new Indian school opening in the coming academic year. Several new Indian schools have started functioning in Qatar over the past few years but even those seem inadequate to meet the huge demand for seats, say residents.
School authorities say they are awaiting instructions from the authorities concerned with regard to fresh admissions.
G Rajkumar, acting principal of MES Indian School, which may not be able to admit any student this year as well, said: “So far, we have not got any permission for admissions this year from the SEC. If there are no admissions, we will not have Class 1 this year as we could not admit any child in KG classes for the past two years. Discussions with the SEC are going on.”
Ideal Indian School principal Syed Shoukat Ali said the school would have a “very small number of seats” available for kindergarten for the general public after siblings (of existing students) are accommodated.
“The situation is very difficult. We have received three to four times more applications than the number of seats available. After admitting the siblings of existing students, there will not be many seats left for others. It is a very tight situation,” he said.
Joseph K, manager at Birla Public School, expressed similar views and said the school had only about 75 seats for KG after admitting siblings. “Online admissions filled up within 15 minutes of opening. Now, we are getting hundreds of applicants every day at our office but cannot do anything about it,” he said.
Both Bhavan’s Public School and Shantiniketan Indian School have closed online registrations for this year’s admission process, according to notifications on their websites. The principals of both the schools were unavailable for comments.
Similarly, DPS-MIS has closed admissions for nursery classes.
An official from Olive International School said admissions for KG classes were underway. “We have started admissions for about 200 seats in the KG classes, which are almost completed. We cannot admit more children on our campuses for other classes. However, we have plans to start one campus for higher classes in Umm Salal if we get the permission from the SEC.”
While admission to KG is a major worry for the parents, securing seats in higher classes is an equally big concern as not many vacancies are available in these schools.
In addition, many parents had sent their children to various nurseries and kindergartens for KG as they could not secure admission in the regular schools. Now, they want their children to be admitted to the regular schools but are reportedly finding it hard to do so.
“We will not be able to provide admissions to higher classes as there are no vacancies. We will be able to admit another child only if any student leaves the school,” said an official of a leading school.
Some parents are also reportedly upset over the fees charged by some of the new schools, saying this compels them to secure admission for their children in other schools with more moderate charges.