The number of children reaching school-going age has been on the rise in Qatar for the past many years. Each year, finding places for children in schools has been one of the biggest headaches for expat parents living in the country.   

In order to address the growing demand for school admissions, the government is planning to open 13 new schools, including two Indian community schools, in the 2018-19 academic year, a top official told The Peninsula.

The new schools are expected to cater to 6,021 students.

“There’re 13 schools and kindergartens which have got licences and going to be opened in the academic year 2018/2019 with a capacity of 6,021 seats,” Hamad Al Ghali, Director of the Department of Private Schools Licensing at the Ministry of Education and Higher Education told The Peninsula.

“Among these schools, two are for the Indian community. They are the El Zaitoun International Primary & Preparatory School, having 699 seats, and the Al Oud Al Akhdar School, which will offer 491 seats,” he said.

Al Ghali said community schools could register students from other communities in case it had vacancies. The legal requirement was to only give priority to same community in a particular community school.

“More people are poised to apply for educational licences in November this year and we hope it’ll meet the current requirement,” he said.

About current capacity in private schools, he said there were more than 33,000 seats for various different educational stages (primary, secondary) for next academic year.