Why GEMS should keep Westminster School open

Posted by: MNJ Thursday, 20 December 2012 11:02 AM[UAE] - United Arab Emirates

It really is time for some creative disrupters to change the dynamics of the UAE educational scene. High quality education cannot be made into a privilege that few can enjoy. I am sure a few smart brains can sit down and figure out a unique and creative model and education delivery mechanism that will send this GEMS monster into extinction like the T-Rex! Education is a right not a privilege: you can make money in education,it is a business yes, but don't mess with peoples lives in the name of profit please!

Posted by: Telcoguy Thursday, 20 December 2012 12:50 PM[UAE] - UAE

@MNJ "High quality education cannot be made into a privilege that few can enjoy" well, guess what. High-quality education is actually a privilege that few can enjoy. Check the fees at any Ivy League university, top business school, the high-school where most of the students to these places come from, and all the way down to nurseries school in London, NY, even Beijing
High-quality education has always been the preserve of very few, because it simply is quite expensive. There are some very research papers on why goods that are labour intensive are becoming more and more out of reach of normal people, growing way faster than inflation, while at the same time things like, for example, high-quality TVs are becoming more affordable
So i think that unless someone comes with a way to replace teachers and human inputs with a mass-produced tablet+app you will see how high-quality education becomes more and more expensive
When you look at GEMS move in that perspective it is not surprising

Posted by: SKM Thursday, 20 December 2012 11:02 AM[UAE] - UAE

Dear Mr. Anil, Well said.... congratulations and thanks for writing the truth without looking how big they are..

My children also studying in GEMS school, I know their strategy very well for the past 10 years. Its purely a business only; not a charity work. They are collecting money from us for helping the poor children in different countries. But they are not bothered about our children. My salary is only to pay the children school fee, loan and the rent every month. My wife salary is only just to buy food and the other basic things. They have to consider the family like ours also. All humans, birds, animals will end up in final place. All should remember that, nobody can take any single penny which they earn during their life time in this wonderful world. Love each other, Help each other. Give respect to all. You will be blessed.

Posted by: David Jay Thursday, 20 December 2012 9:03 AM[UAE] - France

GEMS should have set the base Fees higher and I am surprised that a prestigious English School such as Westminster was fooled into agreeing such a low Fee structure. Given the costs of employing Ex-Patriate teachers plus all the on-costs, it surely was never a runner in UAE.

Posted by: Asif Habib Thursday, 20 December 2012 11:32 AM[UAE] - UAE

Just for your Information, this school has been here for abt 25years. It was a Pakistani School at first, I got an admission there in the year 1992, yes it is one of the cheapest schools, but Instead of closing the schools that we spent 15years of life in, why donot they discuss their requirements openly.

Posted by: Asif Habib Wednesday, 19 December 2012 9:46 PM[UAE] - UAE

I had like to make one just more point here, even when we know that GEMS are doing ethically and morally a wrong thing, because the parents donot want them to make huge investments on facilities, we are happy just the way it is, which can be sustained with minor or moderate fees hike.

But still GEMS is going to close down anyhow. And after that we donot have any options, we will have to seek admissions in one of their New schools, where we will be paying 100% more on the fees. Because of the supply and demand factor, as the number of school is already shorter, and with such a huge number looking for admissions now (5000), parents will be lucky to find admissions in any school at any fees.

I feel sorry for all the parents, but their does not seem to be any solution coming forward.

Posted by: Navin Wednesday, 19 December 2012 3:51 PM[UAE] - UAE

The biggest problem one set of parents face is to compete with another set of parents whose employers reimburse fat school fees and not pay it as a cash allowance. If this was to change the wind would vanish from GEMS sail! This arrogance of operating in a monopolistic environment cannot be ignored by authorities in something as crucial as education which unlike telecom has to be social in its outlook!

Posted by: Telcoguy Thursday, 20 December 2012 9:55 AM[UAE] - UAE

@ Navin, I agree with you that allowances are not efficient in an economic sense. And I agree that they distort, to some extent prices.
But that is a different question from your original post or a least my reading of it.
The UAE has a quite extreme income distribution, that is a fact of life here, and there is a small group of high income earners that simply distort the market for housing or education. You see the same thing in London where rental market is driven by a minority of high income professionals.

Given the prices of private education anywhere I doubt that moving from the allowance system to a plain salary one would have a serious impact. I may be wrong, we will probably never now.

But on your dislike of allowances, yes we agree wholeheartedly. I will never understand why they are so popular. I suspect people really believe it is the employer paying, not them.

Posted by: Navin Thursday, 20 December 2012 9:07 AM[UAE] - UAE

@telcoguy; paying out a cash allowance instead of reimbursing reduces salaries ! Really! this is not about CTC but about letting the employee decide how he spends his earning and get value for every dollar spent and get GEMS to compete for that dollar instead of using the monopoly they have built up over the years without oversight.

I earn every bit of my income and want total control over how I spend it! And if someone else feels he needs his employers to decide how much he should be spending on his house his food his kids school fees and how much to save then he has my sympathy!

Posted by: Telcoguy Wednesday, 19 December 2012 7:40 PM[UAE] - UAR

That is a powerful insight. Let me rephrase it: the biggest problem with lower salaries face is to compete with people with bigger salaries who are willing to pay more for things.
And your proposed solution is to lower the salary of the better paid people. I think that is brilliant, how is that nobody thought of this before?

Maybe there is a catch to an employer the only relevant figure is total cost as splitting into allowance is merely window dressing (or in the case of healthcare originally in the US) a tax arbitrage.
If the companies providing this "perk" were to remove it one of these two things would most likely happen:
-Either they would increase the official salary of the better paid people (if needed to retain them)
-or they would reduce similarly the salary of the lowest paid people (because market has gone south)

Think about it.