OFWs in UAE decry poor education in Filipino international schools

MANILA, Philippines - Abu Dhabi-United Arab Emirates overseas Filipino worker-couples especially those in the emirates of Dubai and Abu Dhabi bewailed the poor quality of education offered by Filipino schools, that force them to send their children back home to the Philippines to get a proper education.

While Filipino schools charge high tuition fees reaching up to UAED8,000 a school year, Filipino expatriates here said that these institutions fail to educate their children satisfactorily.

“It seems they don’t learn anything from the teaching in these schools,” Willie Lacsina, a Dubai-based OFW who works for an events management company.

“It has come to a point where I decided to send my children back home so that they can get a good education. It seems even public schools give a better education than the schools here,” Lacsina said.

Lacsina, whose wife also works in Dubai as a staff in a high-end clothing store, said that the decision came personally for him since it meant that he had to endure separation with his twin daughters and his youngest son.

Lacsina said that if the quality of education in Filipino schools was adequate, he and his wife would prefer that they stay with them, so as to allow them to watch over them personally.

It was learned that there are Filipino schools operating in many countries such as Bahrain, China, Greece, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Libya, Oman, Qatar, and the United Arab Emirates.

Supposedly, Philippine government agencies has regulatory control over these Filipino schools, having the power to issue permits for the opening of such schools.

Among the agencies monitoring and regulating such schools are the Department of Foreign Affairs, the Overseas Workers Welfare Administration, the Commission on Filipinos Overseas, the Department of Education, and the Department of Labor and Employment. — Rainier Allan Ronda