Ahmedabad-based education provider, Calorx Group is planning to invest Rs 250 crore for its overseas foray into the United Arab Emirates. The group, under the local subsidiary Calorx Internatonal Education will set up 16 schools in UAE including beginning with at least three pre-primary schools in the first academic year.
Announcing the overseas plans here on Thursday, Manjula Pooja Shroff, Chairperson of Calorx Group maintained that the Group will also expand its school network in the Middle East region including Sharjah, Dubai and Oman by opening 16 schools in the K-12 (KG to Class-12) segment.
"We aim to increase the number of schools and institutions from currently 40 to 100 across India & Middle East region. We will open our first pre-school in Dubai by April 2015. We are aiming for a total 10,000 student strength across 16 schools in the Middle East region," said Shroff adding that a total Rs 250 crore or $ 4 million worth of investment will be required for the UAE plans over the next three years.
The Calorx Group's foray into Dubai is the very first instance of an education venture going abroad from Gujarat-based education group. Calorx schools in UAE will offer Cambridge and CBSE curricula and will begin at least 2-3 schools from the upcoming academic year in 2015, she said.
"As per the Vision 2022 announced by the UAE government, the overall education sector will increase from $ 9.1 billion at present to about $ 14.4 billion by 2022. This provides potential for Calorx to provide quality academic services to the overseas population," said Shailesh Iyer, Director, Calorx International Education LLC.
Iyer further mentioned that Dubai is increasingly focusing on the education sector, by keeping close monitoring and regulation on quality of the education.
"The World Bank data shows that UAE government spends 23 per cent of its total expenditure towards educational expenditure, while the world average is 14 per cent and developed nations like UK and US have 13 per cent and 12 per cent respectively," he said.
Calorx pedagogy places great emphasis on knowledge sharing thus enabling the student to adapt and mould to a fast-changing competitive world and emerge as global students.