Private schools in Dubai that do not follow the national curriculum are now allowed to follow their own holiday calendars.
However, the schools must comply with the number of school days and school hours stipulated by the regulators, a KHDA official said.
This comes after the Ministry of Education ordered all public and private schools and universities in the country to align their term dates, “We cannot have one-size-fits-all solutions, we have schools attached to their respective education boards, like US, UK Edexcel and CIE, French, Indian, Pakistani, who have different schedules for examinations, external assessment dates and other similar commitments”Mohammad Darwish, Chief of the Regulation and Compliance Commission at the KHDA.
The ministry had exempted Asian schools from following a standardized calendar because of their separate academic year, but other international schools were asked to modify their timetable to that of state schools.
Schools have been complaining ever since the announcement of the unified holiday calendar by the Ministry of Education last month as it had put their vacation plans in jeopardy and often clashed with exam dates.
