Dammam – The International Indian School in Dammam (IISD) has signed an agreement for constructing a new building in a 7,500 square meters land area near the existing school premises. An agreement to this effect was signed on Sunday between the landowner, Hamad Saleh Abdullateef Bosbait, managing director, Al Qwaleb Real Estate and General Contractors, and the chairman of the School managing committee Mohammad Abdul Waris in the presence of other managing committee members including Dr. Abdussalam Kanniyan, Rasheed Umer, Dr. Francis Borgio, the School Principal Dr. E K Mohammed Shaffe and the Finance Officer Q. Ansari. The Indian School already has two sprawling campuses in Rakah area one for boys and another for girls. In addition to these two large campuses the school has rented several villas to accommodate growing students' population. Currently the Indian school has a combined strength of 17,500 students both boys and girls. Being a community school that is run on no profit, no loss basis, the school has a universal admission policy and until last year the combined strength was 18,000. But overcrowded classes rooms and insecure and unsafe villas forced Saudi Education Ministry, International Schools section, to put a restriction on new admissions of all the schools that were considered crowded. The fee structure of Indian School is considered to be lowest amongst all international schools in the Kingdom. The ban on admission created uproar among the Indian community. The ministry has initially put a ban on rented villas too but after several petitions from the schools as well as parents of different nationalities, the ministry temporarily allowed renting of premises with strict instruction to construct new premises at the earliest. Many schools, including IISD, have 40 to 45 students in one classroom which is against all the norms and certainly is a safety hazard in the eventuality of any mishap. The ministry has issued a mandatory advisory that each classroom should have 25-30 students. Waris, Indian school managing committee chairman, told Saudi Gazette that the school has already started phasing out rented villas and once this new structure is ready "we will completely vacate villas," adding that the new structure will improve quality of education as it will ease congestion." Many of the International schools have stopped new admissions due to number pressure and ministry stricture. As a result parents from the Indian, Bangladeshi, Pakistani, Egyptian and Filipino communities with middle income are left with no choice but to send their families back home for their children's education. Like Indian school other community schools are also contemplating new and bigger structure for their schools. The new building is located behind Kempinski Hotel where first Indian Embassy School started more than three decades ago with few hundred students. The construction work has already started. As per the agreement the building is to be constructed and handed over to the school within 16 months time. The required approvals from the municipality, Ministry of Education, planning department etc., have been already obtained for the building. There will be around 120 classrooms, multipurpose hall, canteen, prayer room, administrative office rooms etc., in the building along with a playground. The school will lease the building for an initial 15 years on a mutually agreed annual rent. It is not yet clear that which section will be moved as school management is looking into all the scenarios. "Our top priority is safety and security of our children," the chairman said. He hoped that with the new building which he expects to have possession by March/April 2018 admission pressure will ease.
