Chinese School Dubai, Mirdif – First Review 2020

Background – Chinese School Dubai. New Chinese National Curriculum school to be the first Chinese government approved and backed all-through school outside China. Opening confirmed in Mirdif, Dubai in September 2020. 

The Chinese government has confirmed the opening of China School Dubai, a new KG – Grade 12, 2000 capacity all through school offering a Chinese National Curriculum to children between the ages of 3 and 18 years. The not-for-profit, Chinese government subsidised school will initially open from KG to Grade 5 and it is understood that the school has already secured a founding role of more than 200 students. Although the Chinese School Dubai welcomes applications from students of all nationalities, it is likely to see applications dominated by those from Chinese families for whom the likelihood of ever being able to access a Chinese state backed education for their children, before the announcement, will have seemed seemed remote. Initially the school capacity is being positioned for a role of 800 students. In China the school is known as Dubai China International School.

His Excellency Li Xuhang, China’s Consul General, positions the opening of the school as the product of a partnership between the UAE and Chinese governments “to promote bilateral relations and cultural exchanges, [..] meet the increasing demand from the existing diversified communities in Dubai [and] attract talent from China and other regions to study, work and live in Dubai.”

Location

Official Chinese Ministry of Education Statement – in Full

“In order to thoroughly implement the spirit of General Secretary Xi Jinping’s important speech on “education going global”, the Dubai China International School, which is entrusted by the Ministry of Education and undertaken by the Hangzhou Municipal Education Bureau, will officially open in September this year. The school is the first batch of overseas Chinese international school pilot units of the Ministry of Education.

With the strong support of the Ministry of Education of China, Zhejiang Provincial Department of Education, Hangzhou Municipal Education Bureau, Chinese Consulate General in Dubai, Dubai Social Development Bureau, Dubai Education and Human Resources Bureau, and Hangzhou No. 2 Middle School in Zhejiang Province, preparations for the establishment of Dubai China International School Fully advance.

At present, the school preparation team has carried out a number of school preparatory work to ensure that the school can enroll students in June and officially open in September. The Dubai China International School under construction is a 14-year non-profit full-time school covering kindergartens, elementary schools, junior high schools, and high schools. The planned scale is 800 students. The elementary school plans to open this fall and enroll students from grades 1-5, and will expand the enrollment section year by year.

Dubai China International School takes “Aspiration, Effort, and Service” as its school motto, and provides high-quality Chinese basic education for the children of overseas Chinese in Dubai, so as to meet the actual needs of local Chinese students who transfer back to China in the future to continue their studies or enter international colleges It is a soul-building project for overseas students, and it is also a livelihood project for Chinese and overseas Chinese in Dubai.

The school has established a management committee with the Hangzhou Municipal Education Bureau, the Consulate General in Dubai, and representatives of Chinese-funded enterprises as the core. The principal responsibility system under the leadership of the management committee is implemented.

The goal is to build a pioneering, iconic and leading school Overseas Chinese International School.

Dubai China International School is commissioned by the organizer to run Hangzhou No. 2 Middle School in Zhejiang Province. It will inherit the excellent school-running tradition and advanced educational concepts of Hangzhou No. 2 Middle School. The school is positioned as a high-quality small-class education school, with the number of students in each class limited to 24 students.

Individualized learning will be implemented across the school.

Dubai China International School will focus on Chinese full-time courses including school-based courses, covering all its subjects and related standards; supplemented by Dubai local courses and international courses, including English, Arabic, sociology, ethics and some international courses.

In the future, students can choose to return to their country to take the college entrance examination, or they can choose to enroll in overseas universities.

The school will attach importance to the integration of different courses. In addition to basic academic courses, it will also provide high-quality comprehensive elective courses such as humanities and history, science and technology, art and sports, comprehensive practice, and philosophy and speculation, focusing on the cultivation of students’ core qualities.

In the next stage, Hangzhou No. 2 Middle School will select outstanding teachers from all over Hangzhou according to the needs of the school’s curriculum, and continue to enrich the management team and faculty of Dubai China International School.

The tenure of teachers is at least two years to ensure the stability of the teaching team. At the same time, it will also recruit qualified and experienced professionals in Dubai to participate in school education and teaching.”

School leadership and Teaching Faculty

Teachers at the Chinese School Dubai have been directly recruited by the Hangzhou Education Bureau. The senior leadership team from China will be joined by 37 new teachers from both Hangzhou and Dubai.

The leadership team is headed by Founding Principal, President and Party Branch Secretary of Dubai China International School, Yin Liping. Mr Liping confirms that “Chinese School Dubai will inherit the tradition and advanced education concept of Hangzhou No. 2 High School, providing the children of overseas Chinese in Dubai with a basic Chinese education of high-quality.

Mr Liping is Secretary of the Party Committee and Deputy Principal of the High School Affiliated to Hangzhou Normal University. He brings to his role a Bachelor of English, Master of Educational Leadership, extensive experience as a Senior High School Teacher and Supervisor of Teacher Ethics and has been in charge of Foreign Affairs and Sino-foreign Cooperation in Running Schools, Letters and Visits. Mr Liping is a director of the Foreign Language Association of Hangzhou Elementary and Secondary Schools, a member of the foreign language professional title evaluation expert database, one of the prestigious first batch of academic leaders in Hangzhou, and an external instructor of the School of Foreign Languages ​​of Hangzhou Normal University. He has served as class teacher, grade group leader, teaching director, vice principal (administrative logistics) and chairman of the labor union. He has successively won the honorary titles of Hangzhou Education System Rookie, Excellent Gardener, Excellent Teacher, and Excellent Party Member. He has more than 20 years of education, teaching and administrative logistics experience, and 8 years of management experience in the International Department. He has held responsibility for school construction, finance, international education, foreign affairs management, and teacher management. His educational philosophy is to”infect students with the charm of personality, care for students with a broad mind, enrich students with rich knowledge and lead students with clever wisdom.”

Zheng Jianhua is Vice Principal of Teaching and Primary School Principal of Dubai China International School. He is the current Vice Principal of Hangzhou Changjiang Experimental Primary School and the Principal of Wulin Prefectural School. Mr Jianhua has been engaged in elementary education for 18 years and has 5 years of experience as a Principal. He is a rookie in the teaching circle of Zhejiang Province, an outstanding teacher in Hangzhou, an outstanding subject leader of the Zhejiang Primary School Science Network Famous Teacher Studio, recipient of the gold award for Zhejiang Education Reform Star, and a part-time faculty and researcher in Xiacheng District.

Former class teacher, brigade counselor, secretary of the Youth League branch, director of the student office, he brings to his role a deep commitment to the research and practice of new curriculum standards and new concepts with a striving to create a “useful, interesting, and warm” science classroom.

In terms of administrative management, he has earned a reputation for his vision and emphasis on innovation, and is praised for his creation of a distinctive brand of “small class” in schools. Mr Jianhua promoted the construction of “primary school” courses in his former role, and improved the core whole child qualities of students.

His educational philosophy is: “If you are the sun, I am a prism to read your secrets that no one has discovered.”

Zhao Baidong, Vice Principal of Logistics, Dubai China International School, is a senior middle school teacher and famous teacher of Hangzhou Second Middle School and Zhejiang school. A rookie in the education circle of Hangzhou, an outstanding teacher in the education system of Hangzhou, with advanced experienced in scientific research in Zhejiang Province, Mr Baidong is a Member of Hangzhou Municipal Teachers’ Senior Professional Title Review Paper Appraisal, Dissertation Defence and Lecture Expert Database Member, Hangzhou Elementary and Middle School Teachers’ Intermediate and Advanced Professional Technical Qualification Review Expert Database Member, Hangzhou Education Evaluation Expert Database Member, Zhejiang Sports and Health Subject Curriculum Construction Member – and Member of the expert group for formulating implementation plans.

Mr Baidong brings with him 15 years of administrative and logistics management experience under the management concept of “environmental education”. He is experienced in property management and has won awards for for his roll out of “green school” and “safe campus” initiatives.

School Fees

Official KHDA fees:

Founding discounted fees have now been announced as follows:

Curriculum

The Hangzhou Number 2 curriculum model will be offered with Arabic as second language, Islamic studies, moral education and UAE studies based on the UAE national curriculum. Its founding school was ranked by the China Research Center in Washington, USA, fifth in its 2013 audit of the best high schools in China. We are awaiting further clarification on the exact shape of the curriculum, but it is worth noting that the founding school is a test site for British A Levels in China and holds the Harvard University Chinese and American Student Leaders Summit, one of the three permanent parallel venues in China. The number of admissions to Tsinghua University in Peking University averages 10%, Fudan Jiaotong University 15%, Zhejiang University 30% and the school notes 985 college admission rates above 80%. The school has a strong cohort of students graduating to Harvard, MIT, Ford and Oxbridge each year. Its international Olympic discipline competition ranks first in China and the founding school has won 11 gold medals in the four disciplines of physics, chemistry, information, and biology.

Also worth noting is the founding school’s strong commitment to vocational education. We expect, as the school develops, that the school will develop strong links with the Chinese business and industrial community, many of which have played a key role in establishing the Chinese School Dubai.

ECA and Whole Child Development 

The founding school has 35 societies and 13 sports clubs. We are awaiting confirmation from Chinese School Dubai of the exact ECA offer of the new school on launch.

Facilities

School facilities are described as “state of the art”. If the school replicates its founding school, we expect an outstanding level of facility provision with a strong focus on technology.  Initially, the school, in response to the Covid 19 pandemic, will open with social distancing in place for all students. Class groups will be split between two classrooms. Students in the first classroom will be taught live by teaching faculty, with students in the second classroom receiving the lesson streamed live over digital media. This will enable class sizes to be halved across the school to enable social distance, but still enable classes to receive the same lessons.

Contact information

School Admissions can be contacted on +971 506750399. The Chinese School Dubai Admissions Team can be emailed at [email protected].

Bottom line? The SchoolsCompared.com 2020 verdict on Chinese School Dubai.

It is telling that Dubai and the UAE should secure the world’s first investment by China’s Ministry of Education in official all through schooling outside China. The profile of the opening should bring with it an exceptional level of investment in children, not least because the eyes of the world will be on the school as it seeks to pioneer its vision of what an outstanding official Chinese school education will look like outside China. The opportunity for the Chinese government is to develop a model of schooling that can be rolled out worldwide – but for Chinese students, in particular, in Dubai, the opportunity is to be part of something historic with all the financial might of China – and one of its best founding schools, behind them.

As we learn more we will update our review and hope to conduct our first on-site review in late August 2020 as the school prepares to open its doors to its founding role.

Watch this space.

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