A prominent education group in the UAE now has the highest number of teachers ever. According to Dino Varkey, the group chief executive officer of GEMS Education, the group has hired 2445 new teachers in less than a year, the largest intake ever in its 64-year history. With this, we have the largest number of teachers ever in the history of GEMS,” said Dino Varkey. “We have not seen such growth since the 2014-2017 period. A lot more people are coming to the UAE because it is an economic oasis at a time when there is uncertainty in several other places. So as more people come here, the demand for education is growing as well.Varkey was speaking at a media roundtable on the sidelines of the GEMS Awareness Day. Held annually to welcome new teachers into the group, the awareness day is an important platform for integrating new teachers into the group. The new teachers came from around the world into the GEMS network of 44 schools across the UAE and Qatar. Many relocated from abroad chiefly from the UK, US, and India, and are already settling into their new school communities.
The new intake of teachers spans the full range of year groups from kindergarten and Foundation Stage to post-16, and covers British, IB, US and Indian curricula. According to Varkey, the group received over 590,000 applications and hired just over 2 per cent of the total applications they received. Among the new teachers welcomed by the group were French teacher Hassen Jaidi and Arabic teacher Siham Habli. Jaidi, who spent 12 years teaching French in Columbia, said he wanted to relocate to the UAE to be closer to home. “I am originally from Tunisia and I wanted to be somewhere close to my country,” he said. “The UAE is such an amazing country so I applied to the group and got lucky enough to be selected.” He is now in the process of moving his family here as well. “I honestly did not even need to convince my wife,” he said. “When she heard UAE, she was very happy to move.” For Habli, the move has been from another school in the UAE. “I have been working in Dubai for the last five years,” she said. “So when I saw an opportunity to move to GEMS, I applied because it is such an amazing place to work. I am looking forward to meeting new students and creating a great environment for them.”
This year GEMS Education will also add a new school to its portfolio, thanks in large part due to the positive enrolment trends in 2023. The group has launched GEMS Metropole School Al Waha, in Dubai to meet demand. The British curriculum school is now enrolling students for classes between FS1 and Year 8. In addition to this, the group will also start a new school titled Founders Model school in Masdar city in Abu Dhabi. The institute will start taking admissions in September 2024. According to Varkey, the demand for new schools will continue to rise on current predictions. “Even if we achieve a third of the economic growth prediction according to the Dubai Economic Agenda, D33, the size of the private education market needs to double,” he said. “We are already experiencing an increase in demand across the board. However, the highest demand has been for our premium schools.” Varkey further clarified that this was in direct correlation to the number of High Net Worth Individuals (HNWI) who have relocated to the country. “The UAE has benefited greatly from the relocation of wealth,” he said. “People from both the east and west are moving here because they have a really safe, stable, secure environment with really good infrastructure and really good enabling environment for enterprise and business. And as a consequence, the first thing that families.
