DUBAI — Private schools in Dubai will not be increasing tuition fees for the 2021-22 academic year, the emirate's Knowledge and Human Development Authority (KHDA) announced on Monday.

This is the second consecutive year that fees for Dubai schools have remained steady.

The announcement follows the release of the annual Education Cost Index (ECI) calculated by the Dubai Statistics Centre, which measures annual changes in the costs of running a school, including salaries, rent and utilities. The ECI for this year stands at -2.58 percent.

Mohammed Darwish, CEO of the Regulations and Permits Commission at KHDA, said: "This announcement shows Dubai’s commitment to ensuring that the private school sector continues to deliver value to parents, investors and school operators.

The ECI is a sophisticated measure of schools’ operating costs that governs how schools are able to increase their fees. For everyone in our education community, Dubai’s private school sector remains dynamic, resilient, and well placed to nurture the growth and wellbeing of students."

The Education Cost Index and the Fee Framework were developed in 2012 in collaboration with Dubai Government entities, including Dubai Statistics Centre, Department of Economic Development and Dubai Chamber of Commerce, among others.

Dubai’s private school sector demonstrated its resilience and growth potential with student enrollment increasing by 2.6 per cent in the last three months, as per the latest education landscape report released by KHDA. Dubai has seen the opening of 25 new schools over the past three years, taking the total number of private schools to 210.