Wednesday 11 / June / 2025
Muscat: Students not returning to the classrooms, be it either face-to-face or virtual, are costing millions to school management committees. Take the example of Indian Schools in Oman where more than 7,000 students have left or are planning to leave in 2020-2021.
While more than 4,600 Indian students have opted for transfer certificates in the middle of the term, around 2,000-2,500 additional students are expected to leave the schools or apply for transfers after the completion of the current term, ending in March 2021.
“Considering that the Indian schools are non-profit community schools relying on revenue from fees for sustainability, loss of revenues is a challenge for the schools. If you take an average revenue of OMR45 per student then our annual revenue loss is more than OMR3 million,” said Dr Baby Sam Saamuel, Chairman of the Board of Directors of Indian Schools in Oman.
“This is indeed a trying time for all and our system has tried to ensure the welfare of all our stakeholders, teachers as well as students. We have so far offered financial assistance to parents amounting to OMR1.3 million.”
The situation is no better in the Pakistan School System.
“We had about 5,700 students enrolled in our schools, but that number has now dropped to 4,700,” said Mohammed Zia-Ul-Haq Siddiqui, the chairman of the Steering Committee for the Pakistan School System in Oman.
For this, we are incurring a loss of OMR40,000 per month – amounting to OMR500,000 annually.
“To cope with the losses, we have removed 43 teachers from seven branches costing us OMR18,000.
But still there is a huge gap,” he said. Altogether, there are around 300 teachers in seven Pakistan schools.
In Bangladesh schools, only 50 per cent of students returned to classes when the online session started.
“In 2018, there were around 3,000-3,500 students and now there are only 2,000 students. The schools are facing a heavy financial crisis,” said Sirajul Hoque, chairman, Bangladesh Social Club Oman.
He went on to say that in 2018 there were 200 staff but now we are left with only around 130-135. “Our tuition fee for KG-1 in Bangladesh School Muscat is OMR40 per month and for A-level it is OMR65 per month. So you can imagine the amount of loss we are incurring,” he said.
But one good thing about Pakistan School is that some students from international schools have started taking admissions here. “As our fee structure is less, we can see some students coming,” Mohammed Zia-Ul-Haq Siddiqui said.
During discussions, the schools found out that parents had suffered financial loss during the pandemic and hence, wanted to shift their children.
Still many parents are shifting their families back home. “When we asked some parents who had applied for transfer certificates during November why are you sending your family back home, they said due to their inability to pay high fees here,” said Sirajul Hoque.
He also said parents cited reasons like loss in business and salary-cuts for being unable to let their children continue in Oman schools. In nursery or kindergarten, parents are not even asking for transfer certificates.
“They are just pulling out their children and not coming back for readmission,” another Board official said.
According to statistics, more than 4,600 students from Indian schools in the country obtained transfer certificates between April and January 15, with the highest number of cases being reported from Indian School Muscat, where close to 900 students opted for transfer certificates.
Besides Indian School Muscat, a big drop in student numbers was reported from Indian School Wadi Kabir (692) followed by Indian School Sohar (511) and Indian School Muladha (329). Indian School Ghubra, Indian School Darsait and Indian School Seeb all reported more than 250 students leaving their institutions.
According to data from the National Centre for Statistics and Information, the number of total expat workers fell from 1,712,798 at the end of December 2019 to 1,443,128 at the end of December 2020, reflecting a drop of 269,670.
“More than 250,000 people have left the country in the last few months so it was obvious it would impact attendance numbers in school as well,” said an educator.
“In the current crisis only the Bangladesh Embassy can protect the school. I think, just like the Embassy has been supporting the school all these years, only with the Embassy’s support can the school move forward. The Bangladesh social club is always committed to support the Embassy in this endeavour,” added Sirajul Hoque, chairman, Bangladesh Social Club Oman.
