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Admissions in Filipino schools shoot up manifold across Qatar

DOHA: Schools across Qatar that cater particularly to Indian and Filipino communities have received deluge of applications months before the new academic year starts.

While the demand far exceeds the number of seats available at Indian schools, the Filipino schools have been witnessing an increase in the number of applicants every year, Gulf Times quoted the officials as saying.

The situation is particularly worrisome for Indian expatriates as many of them are finding it hard to secure a seat for their children in community schools, where the new academic year will begin in April, the report said.

Officials of a number of Indian schools have stressed that the demand is several times higher than the seats available. These schools had to cut down on new admissions since two years in line with a directive from the Supreme Education Council (SEC) to bring down class sizes to reasonable levels, it added.

This time, too, the availability of seats is limited for KG as well as higher classes, it is found. G Rajkumar, acting principal of MES Indian School reportedly said they were yet to get permission for admissions this year too 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.”

Meanwhile, the demand for seats is also growing at Filipino community schools in the country. Philippine School Doha (PSD) principal Alexander Acosta has stressed that the demand for seats and number of enrollees continue to increase every year, the report said.

PSD, located in the Al Messilah area of Doha, has been receiving hundreds of “reservations” every year due to the growing Filipino population in the country, according to Gulf Times.

The number of students on PSD’s waiting list is between 300 and 500 annually and about 150 are being admitted, according to the school registrar’s office, said the Gulf News report.

While the school faces some space constraints at present, Acosta is confident that the new PSD building in Abu Hamour will meet the growing demand for seats.

Philippine International School Qatar and other schools have also reported an increasing number of enrollees every year, Gulf Times reported.

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