One of the big characteristics of Dubai is that in education, like in all other sectors, you can have your pick of whatever you want. There is enough choice and availability at every price point, every curriculum. And as we look ahead as the regulator, what would you like to see? How would you like to see the sector develop?
Absolutely. I mean, as you know, Dubai is a home for more than two hundred nationalities. People come to Dubai for various reasons, but one of the top reasons is having choices in Dubai, having modern choices and new choices, whether it's curriculum, fee, location, whatnot. What we wanna look at, grow the two together.
Yes. Definitely, we need also more choices because people will ask, but in the same time we make sure that the choices are not only a good quality, but a very good and outstanding quality. So now you've seen the number of the twelve percent growth. You've seen how many more people you're coming in.
Now if you look at what's happening on the investment side, literally every school wants to open in Dubai, whether existing in Dubai wants to open up or somebody from abroad wants to open up. This is where I think it's it's it's an opportunity, a challenging opportunity at the same time. You you as a city are confined with a number of lands of school. That's how it works.
So you will get maybe ten people wanting to move into the same land. Right. I think the opportunity at hand to make sure out of the ten who want to move the land, who is going to give you the best education, the most innovative, the most creative, the different product. That would be probably more of the challenge to sort of select the right to serve the parents the best.
And Dubai has had a very successful track record in bringing, international brands, legacy brands, a lot from the UK, but some from the US as well.
They've set up home in Dubai and been very successful. We also see a lot of interest from some of these British independent school brands increasing in Dubai. What advice would you have for those kinds of schools looking to come and set up in Dubai?
I think my best advice is not what you provide, but what you also take on. So you will have a non school from UK, Europe or the US want to come to Dubai. Dubai, as much as you're going to bring a wealth of education, heritage, everything else, also provides you a diversity in terms of students, provide you the opportunity to attract teachers, global teachers around it, and to learn from what's happening in the city. So it always works both ways.
So when we talk about those British brands, they tend to be more at the premium end. I think there's a lot written about the fact that there are a lot of great premium schools on offer in Dubai. But I know that one of the key focus areas for KHTA has been to continue encouraging affordable schools.
Would you share some thoughts on how you want to approach affordable schools going forward?
I mean, I think as a society we have sort of the differences you economic levels. I think the affordable schools are growing. It's not that that's not growing. But the nature of those kind of school, they don't grow very quickly.
Right.
And I think it's always sort of a mirror reflection of the society, what it is. So I think with the affordable schools, we are working very closely with them to see what facilities they would need. But the underline to all of them, whether it's affordable or premium, whatnot. The underlining is it has to be a quality. Right. It cannot be anything else.
We have many schools here in Dubai, some homegrown, some led by large groups of investors, some led by local investors as well.
How should they think about networking or interfacing with the KHD when they're beginning to just make the exploratory steps into Dubai?
I think the first thing they would do is just, you know, I mean, show an interest. Write us, give us what they are thinking about. I think it's our duty and responsibility to give them all the data, which I think most of them are in the public domain anyway, but to also guide them into, you know, what Dubai can provide, sort of holding their hand to understand this is the right place for them and it has the right things and the expectation need to be matched. And I think this is where we're really focusing on having a lot of conversation at the beginning because as you know, a school project, you might have the project in two, three years time, but the school is going to stay here for fifty, sixty, seventy years.
Some are purely financially driven. It depends on the kind of investment behind them, some of our community, and all models are available. There's no right or wrong model. And we've seen actually the different models can produce high quality education.
And this need and this constant pursuit of continuous improvement and quality across price points is I think has been a core tenant of what the KHTA has been trying to achieve when building the education, the school landscape.
Some operators and investors will sometimes say to me, well, we can look at other markets where we're offered incentives, subsidies, land. Dubai doesn't offer us that. What would you say to those operators?
I mean, you can you can say almost the same thing about the different industries we have. I think having to be sort of in charge of your own destiny, controlling the business model, ensuring the sustainability, I think this is for those investor who's looking for the long haul, knowing that everything is transparent. All the laws and regulations, all the data, everything is transparent to everyone. But let's don't forget one thing, it's Dubai that brought the people to Dubai. That is the biggest incentive you will ever gonna get.
