Abu Dhabi: Abu Dhabi Indian School (ADIS) is struggling hard with a long waiting list of pupils seeking admissions, due to a lack of seats in the Indian schools in the capital, the school officials have revealed.
"There were more than 1,000 applicants each for 150 seats each in kindergarten 1 and grade 1 this academic year," B. R. Shetty, Chairman of ADIS, told Gulf News on Wednesday.
There is a large number of pupils seeking admissions in other classes also apart from K.G 1 and grade 1, he said.
ADIS, a non-profit sharing school, is one of the largest Indian schools in the country, with about 5,800 pupils. Shetty said establishing new branch of the school will be the immediate solution to the problem.
As Gulf News reported on April 4, 2010, ADIS management had requested the permission from Abu Dhabi Education Council (ADEC) to open a new branch. The council had confirmed that it was considering the request, as part of its strategy to encourage building more non-profit sharing Indian schools to address the shortage of seats.
At a press conference at the school on Tuesday evening, Shetty said the management is still waiting for the land from the council to start the construction of the school. He said that he had learnt from ADEC that about 12,000 more seats had to be created to address the shortage of seats in Indian schools in the capital.
"So that we are planning to build a news school to accommodate about 5,000 schools," he said.
Shetty said Indian Community Kindergarten (ICK) owned by him has also sought the permission to build a non-profit sharing school up to grade 12, so that both the schools can take most of the 12,000 pupils who will be seeking admission in the coming years.
As Gulf News reported the crisis erupted following an ADEC decision to close down schools being run in villas by 2013, citing lack of educational, environmental, health and safety standards.
Explaining the hundred percent results achieved by the students in recent CBSE examinations, Shetty and V.K. Mathu, the school principal, said ADIS management would be able to build a new school with the same academic excellence.
Shetty revealed that ADEC has promised the land on a nominal rent for the new school. "It would be probably near Mussffah or Mohammad Bin Zayed City,".
"Once the land is given, we can start the construction next day, as we have enough funds, so that it can start functioning next academic year [2012-2013]" he said.
ADEC has not yet officially confirmed the quantum of shortage in Indian schools in the capital. ADEC and DoT officials were not available for comments on Wednesday.
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