Given the current crisis situation, we, parents of students at Raffles World Academy (RWA), a school owned by Innoventures Education, appreciate RWA’s continuous support, improvement in terms of remote learning and the sacrificial work of teachers.

On the other hand, we feel that asking for full tuition fee payment for the remote learning period that started on 22 March 2020 and will continue until the end of this school year, is highly unjustified.

Businesses all over the UAE are having to cut costs with lots of employees being laid off, forced to take unpaid leave or having to accept 30-50% salary cuts. This current situation is a difficult time for all of us.

We appreciate that the school is paying teachers in full, which they rightfully deserve, however, this is a business decision and the financial implications of such decision must not be passed onto the students.

It is an undeniable fact that the students are not using the school premises, utilities and facilities for the majority of the semester, thus reducing the school’s costs.

On the other hand, we have to come to terms with the sad reality that we are getting a different type of service than what we paid and signed up for. We cannot compare the remote learning to classes taught on school premises. Students have limited interaction with teachers, certain classes such as ICT, no longer exist in their previous form.In fact, Moral Education no longer exists at all: there is no teacher, no class, no Teams and no online teaching! Furthermore, there are no proper PE classes, no after school activities and no library visits or other facilities that students can use.

We also would like to highlight that remote learning is not a full alternative for IB learning. Many parents have no choice but to assist their children up to 6 hours a day, providing all necessary equipment and technology for students to complete the assigned tasks while many parents are also having to work from home.

Taking all of the above into consideration, it is our firm opinion that asking for a full payment of tuition fees for the last semester of the academic year 2019/2020 is unjustified. We request that Innoventures Education grants all students a reduction of 30% of the tuition fees for the last semester of the academic year 2019/2020. We propose that this fee reduction is to be funded through the reduced operating costs of the school and reduced dividends to its shareholders.

We trust that Innoventures Education will seriously consider this proposal and that we can continue the next school year at RWA together.