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ಪ್ರಕಟಿಸಿದ ದಿನಾಂಕ : 2010-03-18  New Indian school in Dubai to open gates to 3,000 next year The International Indian High School coming up in the Dubai Silicon Oasis, a few kilometres off Emirates Road, will be able to take up to 3,000 students and hopes to provide an atmosphere equal to or better than the present Indian High School (IHS) campus in Oud Metha, which was established in 1961. Construction is under way at the new site and the foundation stone was formally laid yesterday by Shaikh Ahmad Bin Saeed Al Maktoum, President of Dubai Civil Aviation Authority, Chairman and CEO of Emirates Group, and chairman of the Dubai Silicon Oasis Authority. The new campus is being built at a cost of Dh100 million and will feature state-of-the-art facilities such as an amphitheatre, well-equipped IT department, wireless campus, activity room, gymnasium, swimming pool and a temperature-controlled indoor sports complex and virtual classrooms and smart boards. Mohan Valrani, honorary chairman of the board of trustees of IHS, said the school will offer the new international curriculum introduced by the CBSE with the academic focus extended to IT, research and subjects such as nanotechnology. "The school will be ideal for those in the community who do not want to send their children back to India for higher studies. The curriculum is suitable for students to pursue their higher studies here in the UAE or abroad," said Valrani. He added that the new school will also be non-profit and will offer quality education at an affordable price. "I can say that the fees will be a little higher than the existing IHS fee, but it will be lower than most of the other schools in Dubai," said Valrani, who is also senior vice-chairman and managing director of the Al Shirawi Group of Companies. Parents who spoke to Gulf News said it is great news that there would be more seats at least next year for hundreds of parents who have to run from pillar to post to secure admission for their children. "I took part in the lottery conducted by the IHS in January, but was not lucky enough to get a kindergarten admission for my daughter. I am so happy that there will be a new school next year because I do not want to go through the same trauma for my younger child who is one year old now," said Jagateesh Sharma, a father from Dubai. Freeze on school fees ordered in Dubai DUBAI: Private schools in Dubai will be barred from increasing fees this year, the emirate's Knowledge and Human Development Authority has ordered. Parents have welcomed the freeze, but some schools say it could lower the quality of education in the emirate. In a letter to schools that focused on the economic downturn and the financial hardships faced by families, Mohammed Darwish, the chief of the regulations and compliance commission at the Knowledge and Human Development Authority (KHDA), the emirate’s education regulator, said schools needed to “adapt to our changed circumstances”. “Like everywhere, people are experiencing financially difficult times,” he said. “All of us must equally share the enormous responsibility to make sure that the children of Dubai do not have their education disrupted because of the economic downturn that has swept the world.” The letter does not explicitly use the word “barred”, but it makes it clear the powerful regulator would take a dim view of schools that push for fee increases. “We would be concerned to have such requests resubmitted, as we feel that we have made the case very clear,” Mr Darwish said. The letter said the one exemption would be for schools that had to make a large capital outlay, such as moving premises. Ralph Tabberer, spokesman for the Dubai Private Schools Group, which represents 32 institutions that educate roughly 40 per cent of the emirate’s school-aged population, said it was “seeking an urgent meeting” with the KHDA to discuss the decision. Eight operators representing 12 schools out of the 140 private institutions in Dubai have applied for fee increases so far this year. Several school administrators said higher fees were necessary to compete for high-quality staff and to make school improvements. Bassam Abushakra, the regional director of Esol, which operates two schools in Dubai, said he would need to increase tuition at once despite the economic downturn. Esol has not put in a formal request to increase fees but will do so, he said. “We feel they should consider increases on a case-by-case basis. Some schools are in a situation where they have been operating in a deficit for a long time,” Mr Abushakra said. He said that one of the group’s Dubai schools faced this problem because tuition fees were set too low when the school opened five years ago. Annual fee caps have prevented them from catching up with their competitors, he said. Mr Abushakra said rents had gone down in Dubai, but his group had not reduced teachers’ housing allowances, which have remained at Dh61,000 a year. Othman Abdel Bari, the director of the American International School in Dubai, said that fee increases were sometimes needed simply to improve the quality of a school. “Last year we did not increase our fees because of the economic situation,” he said. “Every single school in Dubai needs to increase by at least seven per cent,” he added, pointing to the decision last year that even allowed “unsatisfactory” schools such an increase. The KHDA has been imposing fee caps in Dubai for the past three years. In 2007 it allowed schools to increase fees by as much as 16 per cent. In 2008, schools that had not adopted that increase were allowed to raise fees to that level. And last year, it tied increases to school performance, with top schools being granted a 15 per cent increase. Almost nine out of 10 parents with children enrolled in nurseries, schools or universities said fees were expensive, according to a recent survey by YouGov, an international research organisation. Only 12 per cent said schools were good value or very reasonable. Jerus Moss, a mother of three from the Bahamas living in Dubai, said she supported the freeze. “With the economic crisis, a lot of people have been laid off,” she said. “Hopefully, by next school year the economy will pick up and everything will go back to normal.” Airline pair jailed over sex texting DUBAI. Two Emirates Airline cabin crew have been jailed for three months for exchanging lewd text messages. RS, 42, a flight attendant, and EB, 47, a cabin services supervisor, were convicted of “coercion to commit sin” after sending each other sexually themed SMS messages, according to court documents released yesterday. The pair, both Indian, were sentenced to six months in prison and deportation by the Dubai Court of Misdemeanors in December. The court said the texts “fulfilled all the necessary angles of coercion to the commitment of sin”. The Appeals Court upheld that decision last week. But it halved their jail sentences and scrapped the deportation orders. There was not enough evidence to prove that the pair had extramarital relations, it added. The flight attendant’s sister, BM, 25, was also convicted of perjury and sentenced to three months and deportation by the lower court. Her deportation order was withdrawn on appeal. The case first went to court after the flight attendant’s husband, SG, filed a lawsuit against his wife in March 2009 claiming that she was involved in an illicit relationship with the supervisor. The couple had been embroiled in a divorce battle since 2007. SG has now gained sole custody of their four-year-old son, although it was not clear when the couple divorced. During the divorce proceedings, SG requested that the courts order Etisalat to produce copies of his wife’s text messages, which, he said, proved the illicit relationship. The telecoms provider turned them over to the court in October 2008. Five months later, the flight attendant’s husband filed a criminal complaint against her, charging her with having an affair and saying her text messages were an insult to Islam. She told police that her sister sent the messages to the supervisor, who also denied any relationship with RS. He told officers that he had been seeing her sister for the past four years. Prosecutors decided that was untrue, however, leading to the perjury charge against the sister. Iranians arrested over armed robbery at Sharjah money exchanges DUBAI: Three Iranians accused of robbing two money exchanges in Sharjah in daring daylight heists using 9mm calibre handguns will probably face several charges, a prosecutor said yesterday. The men, identified as AK, AM and AH, were arrested on February 1 when officers raided a flat in Deira’s Al Baraha district, after an investigation by Dubai Police. Prosecutors say the men attacked the money exchanges in January, storming the offices with their faces covered with stockings and firing Iraqi and Czech-made 9mm handguns into the air before escaping in a stolen vehicle. Police have not revealed the names or locations of the two money exchanges, or the amount of money stolen, which is their standard policy. Yousif Foulaz, Deira’s Chief Prosecutor, said the Dubai Public Prosecutor’s Office was waiting for a ballistics report before transferring the case to their colleagues in Sharjah, who will lay the charges. He said the men could expect to face a long list of them, including armed robbery, car theft, illegal weapons possession, and illegal entry into the country. They could also face a charge of illegal consumption of alcohol since they were allegedly found drinking when police raided their flat. Mr Foulaz, who added that the suspects confessed during questioning, said one of the suspects had been previously deported from Dubai and had a criminal record. “He illegally re-entered Dubai from Iran through a mountainous region and met with the second defendant,” he said. Dubai Police said three teams of investigators were used to track down the suspects – one that conducted undercover surveillance, one that gathered background information and another that determined how they entered the country. Man held with huge stash of fake money Discovery made while police were arresting infiltrators and illegal residents in Sharjah Sharjah: Police have arrested an African man who allegedly had half-a-million dollars in fake currency notes in his possession, a Sharjah Police official said yesterday. A senior police official told Gulf News that the discovery was made while police were arresting infiltrators and illegal residents. He said police initially received a tip-off about a large number of men and women who lived together, in addition to being in the country illegally. Police raided the apartment and found men and women, all Bangladeshi nationals, living together. Those arrested had either entered the country illegally or were absconders, he said. "When police raided the apartment, we discovered that they were carrying out many illegal activities, such as human trafficking," said the police officer. In one of the rooms at the apartment, he said police found half a million dollars in fake currency notes, in addition to blank notes, printers, computers and other devices used to forge money. The infiltrators who lived in the apartment informed police that it belonged to an African man who shared the apartment with them. The Criminal Investigation Department (CID) at Sharjah Police then set up a trap to arrest the suspect when he returned home. The suspect was soon arrested along with a woman as they both entered the apartment. Police identified the two suspects of Cameroonian nationality. During the interrogation, the African man allegedly confessed that the fake currency notes and the equipment belonged to him. Both cases have been transferred to Sharjah Public Prosecution
Police rule out criminal intent behind man's death Dubai: The body of a 21-year-old Ukrainian man was found inside his car at Hatta valley on Tuesday after he was reported missing by his parents two days ago. Brigadier Khalil Ebrahim Al Mansouri, Director of the general department for criminal investigation at Dubai Police, told Gulf News that the cause of his death is due to natural circumstances and ruled out any criminal intent. A missing person report was filed and Dubai Police immediately formed an investigative team. Upon interrogating friends of the victim, Dubai Police found out that the dead man was last seen three days ago in Al Majara Valley in Hatta. According to Brigadier Al Mansouri, the Ukrainian refused to return with his friends because he feared he would be punished by his parents for consuming alcohol. Upon obtaining a clearance from the court to carry out an autopsy on the body, it was determined that the victim died of natural circumstances. The car might have slipped from a cliff and landed in the valley, which was covered in water from the recent heavy rains, he said. It took the rescue team more than four hours to find the car deep inside the valley, Brigadier Al Mansouri said.
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