Abu Dhabi: Parents of students of Ryan Private school in Musaffah said on Thursday they were happy that the school was functioning without any disruption despite a dispute between its owner and the management.
“We received assurance from the school owner and authorities that the school would continue to operate without any problems,” they said.
As Gulf News reported on Wednesday, parents of over 1,200 pupils studying at the Indian curriculum school had a sleepless night last Monday after receiving conflicting messages about possible disruption of school operation. Esmail Al Khoury, the school owner, had assured parents that the school would operate as usual but with a different name.
“We visited ADEC [Abu Dhabi Education Council, the school regulator in the emirate] today [Wednesday] and met with a senior official who assured us that school would continue to function without any problems. We were so happy to get such an assurance from the authorities,” said a parent who went to the ADEC office with group of parents.
The school owner told Gulf News that he was the sole authority to run the school. “As the owner I have the approval from ADEC and affiliation from the CBSE [Central Board of Secondary Education] to run the school,” Al Khoury said.
He said all licences from various authorities were under his name and all staff members were also under his authority. Although the school was using the operator’s name [Ryan Group], it would be changed soon as the procedures were being followed to cancel the agreement between both parties, Al Khoury said.
“I don’t have any intention to use their name and logo etc,” he said.
“Most of the pupils have decided to stay with the school and a few have applied for no-objection certificate [NOC] to move to other school, which we have already given,” he said without giving any numbers.
Meanwhile, parents said they were still receiving emails from Ryan Group about possible transfer of pupils to other school.
Jonathan Collins, Chief Operating Officer at Ryan International Group, told Gulf News: “We are doing everything possible to assist parents who would like to move their children to continue their education under the trusted Ryan brand, which remains fully accredited at our Masdar City campus.”
As Ryan Group is no longer the management of the Musafah school, the responsibility of ensuring that the school has all of the required authority approvals now lies with them, he said. “However, we sincerely hope that the situation will be resolved quickly in the interest of the students and parents.
He said they were informed that the school principal had issued multiple communications to parents using Ryan Group’s registered trademark without their consent. “He has no legal authority to do so, this is an infringement of our registered copyright and we simply cannot overlook this,” Collins said.
