Dubai: Dozens of Pakistani expatriate students who were in danger of losing out on an academic year will be able to continue with their studies, thanks to the generosity of a group of philanthropists.
At least 89 students at Pakistan Education Academy (PEA) were facing the prospect of being barred from taking their annual exams due to non-payment of tuition fees which amounted to Dh370,000 in total, which has now been cleared jointly by World Memon Organisation (WMO) and Pakistan Business Council (PBC).
The students mostly belonged to struggling families where the parents had either lost their jobs or were facing unfortunate circumstances, making them unable to pay the fees.
“There are a lot of families who are struggling to make ends meet, there are also others who lost jobs or have families issues due to which the students are suffering. When we got to know about the situation, we came together and decided something has to be done to help the children continue with their studies and thankfully a lot of people came forward and raised the required amount,” said Mahmoud Shaikhani, Deputy Secretary General, WMO.
The fees were cleared in phases with Dh170,000 paid last month, while the remaining amount of Dh200,000 was paid last week.
“In the first phase we decided to clear the fees of those students who had 70 per cent attendance in school and grades of 70 per cent and above. This was done in order to encourage parents to be more serious about their children’s education and to encourage the deserving students. In the second phase we decided to cover all those who were struggling to pay the fees,” added Shaikhani.
Apart from offering financial help, the WMO is providing counselling to parents of broken families. “When we took up the issue of clearing up the pending fees we met a lot of families and we realised that apart from those families who were struggling to make ends meet there were also some parents, who were separated and in many cases neither father nor mother was willing to take responsibility of their children. On this we decided to create awareness among parents that their broken marriages should not impact their children’s education,” said Shaikhani
The WMO is now working with more than a dozen broken families to have them take care of their children’s education on regular basis.
In addition to clearing the fees, the WMO also negotiated with the school to waive fees all the deserving students for the next semester.
The WMO, in association with Pakistan Association Dubai, is now working with other Pakistani schools to clear the pending dues there, which amounts to around Dh500,000.
Shaikhani said that all efforts are being made to help students of other Pakistani schools to settle the dues before end of Ramadan.
