Online tuition in the UAE

One key fact sets the UAE apart: KHDA in Dubai and SPEA in Sharjah both publish an official April-to-March academic calendar specifically for Indian-curriculum schools, alongside the September-start calendar used by British and American schools. SPEA even publishes a dedicated "Asian curricula" calendar.

The practical impact is that a large number of Indian-curriculum children in the UAE follow the Indian school year, not the Gulf or Western one. Their Term 1 begins in April. Their exams fall where an Indian school's exams fall. A tutor working to a September-start rhythm is out of step with the actual school calendar, while a teacher in India is naturally aligned with it.

One honest note: KHDA does not publish which specific schools follow April-March, and directs parents to each school's own profile. So check your child's school rather than assuming - but know that the April-start calendar exists officially, and that it is why our teaching year lines up with your child's.

For online classes, local context matters less—but it does differ, so it's worth understanding which applies to you.

School counts are approximate, drawn from CBSE's affiliation directory rather than a CBSE-published breakdown. The regulators and the fact that Ajman and northern emirates lack their own are published and verifiable.

All of this falls under Federal Decree-Law No. 18 of 2020 on Private Education, which governs private schooling across all seven emirates.

India is one and a half hours ahead of the UAE, offering the most natural overlap we serve. A 6pm India class is 4:30pm here. A 7:30pm India class is 6pm here. Both fall after Gulf school (which ends early afternoon) and well before bedtime.

This matters because it is not true everywhere. Families in the US, UK and Australia realistically need weekend classes or very early Indian mornings. Gulf families do not: an ordinary India evening is an ordinary UAE after-school time. No compromise needed.

Since 1 January 2022 the UAE weekend has been Saturday and Sunday, so weekend classes work like they do for India families. Sharjah is the exception—four-day government week with a three-day weekend. See the Sharjah page if that applies to you.

Every class is one-to-one, and the fee is AED 125 a month for 1 subject, AED 249 for 2 to 3 subjects and AED 349 for all subjects in Class 1 to 5; AED 150, AED 299 and AED 419 in Class 6 to 8 (20% more, because subjects separate out and need specialist depth); and AED 175, AED 349 and AED 489 in Class 9 and 10 (40% more, because they are board-exam years taught by subject specialists, with past papers and marking schemes); the standard plan, for 2 to 3 subjects, is 4 classes a week, 60 minutes each (16 a month). These are close to what a family in India pays, charged in dirhams - and well below what comparable tuition costs locally here in the UAE.

Based on KHDA's published open data, the median annual tuition cost at Dubai's 34 Indian-curriculum schools stands at AED 14,107 at Grade 1 and AED 17,062 at Grade 5, with the full range spanning from AED 2,912 to AED 47,067 each year. Local in-person tutors operating in Dubai typically charge by the hour rather than by the month. Compare a monthly fee for 16 live classes against either of these alternatives, and you will see the cost structure is substantially different.

You can choose more or fewer classes a week, or longer ones, and the fee moves with them. Complete pricing details, including what is and is not covered in your fees, are available on the fees page. The free assessment always comes first - 20 minutes with a real teacher, and nothing is charged before you have seen one in action.

Class 1 through Class 10, with the subject mix expanding as the school syllabus does. This is not a sales list - it reflects what your child is actually taught at each stage.

Spoken English is taught as its own course rather than integrated into regular English classes. This matters for a child who understands written and read English well but speaks in single words or short phrases. Free online tests and practice games are available whether you book with us or not.

Classes are live, not recorded lessons with a person attached, and we do not record them. Every class is one-to-one - one teacher, one child. A standard plan is 4 classes a week, 60 minutes each (16 a month), and you can change the number of classes or their length on the fees page. Your child keeps the same teacher every week rather than a rotating roster, which is the entire point - a teacher who has watched the same child for six weeks notices the third repeat of one mistake, and nobody meeting them fresh can.

A typical session opens by asking the child to explain last week's topic back before anything new starts. That is deliberate: being able to recite something is not the same as understanding it, and the difference only shows when a child has to produce it unprompted. It is the same principle behind our post on why children forget material soon after an exam.

If a class is missed, the teacher picks up the thread in the next class rather than pretending it did not happen. We do not record classes. Between classes a short WhatsApp note tells you plainly what was covered and what to keep an eye on - no jargon, nothing to decode.

It is a free 20-minute assessment with a real teacher, not a sales call. A teacher spends time with your child on actual work—a topic they are stuck on, a recent test, whatever you bring. You are welcome to sit in, and many UAE parents do, particularly the first time.

Afterwards you receive an honest note on what the teacher observed. This includes hard truths: if the real problem is a gap one or two classes below where your child is now, we say so. If we think tuition is not what your child needs at all, we say that too. Our guide on signs a child truly needs a tutor exists partly to discourage unnecessary bookings.

No card is taken and nothing needs cancelling. The single most useful thing you can bring is something specific: a marked test, a homework page with the same error repeated, the name of the chapter the class is studying. This lets the teacher see the actual pattern within the 20 minutes instead of guessing from your description. Book one here.

The teaching remains unchanged - one of the real practical benefits of studying the Indian curriculum from abroad in the first place. Same teacher, same syllabus, same books, and if the new time zone fits the old schedule, same class time too.

For families moving back to India, the transition is a change of location, not school system. Your child enters a Class 7 classroom in Kochi or Pune on the exact chapter the class is studying - because they never left the Indian syllabus. Contrast this with a child who's spent four years on a British or American curriculum and must now juggle two different systems mid-school.

Moving between Gulf states is even easier - the syllabus is identical and the time difference is at most an hour. We teach in Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Oman and Bahrain, with fees simply converting to that country's currency. The one thing to flag early is a board change - moving between CBSE and ICSE mid-year needs preparation. Our post on choosing between the two explains what actually differs.