Quick answer: This UAE school websites study checked 154 Dubai private school websites from KHDA’s public directory on 20 October 2026. 86 per cent publish fees and 82 per cent take online applications, but only 46 per cent show their inspection rating, 36 per cent mention seats, 26 per cent link WhatsApp and 10 per cent offer Arabic. One site had all seven.
Dubai parents shortlist schools online long before they book a visit. They compare ratings and fee sheets in KHDA’s directory, then open each school’s website for what the directory can’t tell them: is there a place in Year 4, how do we apply, when can we visit, can we ask on WhatsApp? We took every school in KHDA’s directory that lists a website, opened its homepage and up to six admissions, fees and tour pages with plain web requests, and checked seven things. Here is what we found, how we did it, and the full data.
Key takeaways
- 132 of 154 school websites (86 per cent) publish fees and 127 (82 per cent) take online applications.
- Fewer than half (46 per cent) show their inspection rating, though KHDA’s directory shows it to every parent.
- Only 55 sites (36 per cent) mention seat availability or a waiting list, so most parents still have to ask.
- Arabic is the widest gap: 16 sites (10 per cent) have an Arabic version, and 13 more rely on a translation plug-in.
- 13 of the 197 websites in the directory didn’t open as a working school site.
Source: OXEDGE study of 154 school websites listed in the KHDA Education Directory, schools, checked 20 October 2026. Data: uae-school-websites-study-data.csv
What our UAE school websites study found on 154 Dubai sites
The basics are mostly there: 150 of 154 sites load over HTTPS, and most publish fees and take applications online. The gaps sit in the details parents use to choose between similar schools: a current rating, seat information, a booked visit, and a quick question in their own language.
Share of 154 assessed websites. Hover or tap a bar for the count. Source: OXEDGE study, 20 October 2026, sample from the KHDA Education Directory. Data: CSV
| Criterion | Sites | Share | What we counted |
|---|---|---|---|
| Fees published | 132 | 86% | Fee amounts on a fees page (118), or a linked fee schedule (69) |
| Inspection rating shown | 71 | 46% | A rating word next to KHDA, DSIB or inspection, or a rating badge |
| Seats or waiting list | 55 | 36% | Any mention of seat availability or a waiting list |
| Online application | 127 | 82% | An apply or enrol link, a portal or an online form |
| Tour booking | 97 | 63% | A book a tour or visit link, or an open day sign-up |
| Arabic version | 16 | 10% | Arabic pages, an Arabic hreflang tag or a language switch |
| WhatsApp link or button | 40 | 26% | A WhatsApp chat link or button |
Source: OXEDGE study, 20 October 2026. Full definitions are in collect.py; every site’s values are in the CSV.
How we built the sample
Dubai’s private school sector is large and growing: 406,563 students enrolled at the start of the 2026-27 academic year, 4.6 per cent more than in June 2026, and 26 new private institutions opened this year, seven of them schools. We needed a public list of every school and its website.
Source: Gulf News, KHDA Media Majlis report, 1 October 2026, opened 20 October 2026.
KHDA’s Education Directory is that list: 229 Dubai private schools with area, curriculum, rating and, on each detail page, a website address.
How we did this: On 20 October 2026 we read the KHDA directory’s schools page (229 schools) and every school’s detail page. 207 schools list a website, pointing to 197 unique sites. A Python script requested each homepage over plain HTTP (desktop Chrome user agent, at most four requests at a time, 15-second timeout), with no browser, logins or forms, then up to six admissions, fees and tour pages linked from it. We assessed 154 sites, covering 162 schools, and excluded 43 (see the table). Abu Dhabi isn’t included: ADEK’s school finder runs on TAMM and needs a browser, so this is a Dubai study. Limits: we read the HTML a server sends, so content added later by JavaScript, fees inside images and pages more than one click from the homepage can be missed. We name no school here; the data file lists every site.
| Sample step | Sites | Why |
|---|---|---|
| Schools in the directory | 229 | Every school on KHDA’s schools page |
| No website listed | 22 schools | No website address; 13 aren’t inspected yet |
| Unique websites | 197 | 207 schools list a website; some schools share one |
| Browser check page | 16 | The site served a bot check instead of a page |
| Built in the browser | 11 | Too little text or too few links in the HTML |
| Did not open | 13 | 6 domains no longer resolve, 3 certificate errors, 3 parked or suspended domains, 1 failed secure connection |
| Not a school site | 3 | No valid address, or a link to a government site |
| Assessed | 154 | The base for every percentage in this article |
Source: OXEDGE study, 20 October 2026; the outcome column in the CSV gives the reason for each site.
Source: OXEDGE study, 20 October 2026, sample from the KHDA Education Directory.
The exclusions are a finding of their own. Thirteen of the 197 websites in an official directory didn’t open as a working school site: dead domains, certificate warnings, parked pages. A parent who taps the link in KHDA’s directory reaches nothing useful.
A parent who taps the link in KHDA’s directory reaches nothing useful.
Fees: published, but not always where parents look
Fees are the strongest result. 118 sites (77 per cent) show fee amounts in the page itself, and 69 (45 per cent) link to a fee schedule or fact sheet; 132 (86 per cent) do at least one. Another 50 sites (32 per cent) link to KHDA’s own fee pages. That leaves 22 sites where we found no fees at all, and 20 of those don’t even link to KHDA.
Parents already have a reference: KHDA’s Fees Fact Sheet lists every fee a school may charge in a year, tuition plus verified fees such as transport, trips and books. On 22 May 2026 KHDA confirmed there would be no increase in private school fees for 2026-27, so last year’s approved figures still apply.
Sources: Gulf News, KHDA introduces Dubai School Fees Fact Sheet, 6 April 2022 · KHDA news, Dubai freezes private school fees for 2026-27, 22 May 2026, both opened 20 October 2026.
In Abu Dhabi the website is named in the rules. ADEK’s School Fees Policy (version 1.1, September 2024, compliance from academic year 2025/26) says schools shall publish their ADEK-approved fees, payment schedules and procedures on their website. A group with schools in both emirates should build every fees page to that standard. This is general guidance, not legal advice.
Source: ADEK School Fees Policy, version 1.1, sections 2.1 and 3.1 (PDF), opened 20 October 2026.
Ratings and seats: the two facts parents ask about next
Only 71 sites (46 per cent) show their inspection rating where we could read it. Schools rated highly are more likely to say so: 34 of the 50 sites of Outstanding or Very good schools (68 per cent) show the rating, against 34 of 96 Good or Acceptable schools (35 per cent). Parents see the rating in the directory anyway, so hiding it gains nothing.
Dates matter too. In the directory on 20 October 2026, 197 of 229 listings still showed an overall rating from 2023-2024. Inspections restart in 2026-27 after a two-year pause for most established schools, and only a comprehensive visit brings a new rating. Print the year beside the rating and link the report.
Sources: KHDA Education Directory, rating labels, read 20 October 2026 · Khaleej Times, KHDA inspection changes, 28 September 2026, opened 20 October 2026.
Seats are the bigger gap. Only 55 sites (36 per cent) mention seat availability, limited places or a waiting list. In the pages we read, these were mostly general lines such as “limited seats available”, not status by year group. A parent who wants to know whether Year 4 has a place still has to fill in a form or call.
Applications and tours: the path to a visit
Online applications are common: 127 sites (82 per cent) have an apply link, a portal or a form. Tour booking is less so: 97 sites (63 per cent) invite parents to book a tour, visit or open day, leaving 57 where the only route to the campus is an enquiry form or the phone. Just 81 sites (53 per cent) do all three of the basics: fees, an application and a tour booking.
A parent who has read the fees is ready to visit before they’re ready to apply, and a tour is where most decisions are made. A tour page should ask for the year group, show real dates, and send a confirmation and a reminder. Tours booked and offers accepted by year group then show where next year’s seats will fill; our guide to admissions, fees and attendance dashboards for UAE schools shows how to track them.
Most of these gaps sit in the page structure. A school website built around admissions puts fees, seats, tours and the application in one path, in both languages.
How OXEDGE does this
We rebuild school admissions pages around the questions in this study, with one path from fees to a booked tour.
- A check of your current site against the seven criteria, with the same script and a written list of gaps.
- Fees, ratings and seat status by year group fed from one record, so every page shows the same current figures.
- Tour booking and WhatsApp enquiries routed to your admissions team, with confirmations and reminders.
- An Arabic version built right to left from the start, with Arabic forms and confirmations.
Our work
OXEDGE designed the website of Happy Home School in Karachi, a school in education since 1949, in 2024. The brief was to make admissions easy to find, so the homepage carries an admissions block with quick links to the application form and procedure, beside a campus information card.
Arabic and WhatsApp: the widest gaps
Only 16 of 154 sites (10 per cent) offer an Arabic version: a link to Arabic pages, an Arabic hreflang tag or an Arabic language switch. Three of the five Ministry of Education curriculum schools we assessed have one, and so do 6 of 22 American curriculum sites. Among the 74 British curriculum sites, only 6 do. Another 13 sites load a translation plug-in such as Weglot or GTranslate; we could not confirm Arabic was enabled, and machine translation isn’t a reviewed page, so we didn’t count them.
Arabic matters even at English-medium schools: the parent who pays the fees isn’t always the one who reads English best. Forms, dates and phone fields all have to work right to left. Our article on twelve things that break in Arabic-first UX lists the usual failures.
Arabic matters even at English-medium schools: the parent who pays the fees isn’t always the one who reads English best.
WhatsApp is the quickest way to ask a small question, yet only 40 sites (26 per cent) offer a chat link or button, and 35 of those have no Arabic version. Our guide to connecting your website, WhatsApp and CRM shows how to route these chats to admissions instead of a personal phone.
Results by rating, curriculum and area
Each site gets a score out of seven. The average is 3.5: one site meets all seven, 38 meet five or more, and 37 meet two or fewer.
| KHDA rating | Sites | Fees | Rating shown | Tour booking | Average of 7 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Outstanding | 15 | 87% | 67% | 73% | 3.5 |
| Very good | 35 | 97% | 69% | 80% | 4.0 |
| Good | 64 | 89% | 41% | 64% | 3.5 |
| Acceptable | 32 | 75% | 25% | 38% | 2.9 |
| Not inspected yet | 7 | 57% | 43% | 57% | 3.3 |
Source: OXEDGE study, 20 October 2026, ratings from the KHDA Education Directory. One site shared by schools with different ratings is left out of this table.
| Curriculum | Sites | Fees | Online application | Arabic version | Average of 7 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| British | 74 | 91% | 88% | 8% | 4.0 |
| IB | 18 | 94% | 89% | 6% | 3.9 |
| Indian | 25 | 100% | 100% | 0% | 3.4 |
| American | 22 | 73% | 73% | 27% | 3.0 |
| UAE Ministry of Education | 5 | 60% | 0% | 60% | 1.2 |
| Other curricula | 8 | 38% | 50% | 0% | 1.8 |
Source: OXEDGE study, 20 October 2026, curriculum is the first one KHDA lists for each school; two sites shared by schools with different curricula are left out. Groups of fewer than ten sites are too small to generalise from. Data: CSV
Very good schools score highest, ahead of Outstanding ones. Every Indian curriculum site publishes fees and takes applications, but fewer than half offer tour booking.
By area, the picture is more even. The map places each school by the coordinates in its KHDA listing and shows the 135 sites in areas with at least three assessed schools.
Sources: OXEDGE study (map_area and criteria_met_of_7 columns in the CSV) · KHDA Education Directory, school detail pages, read 20 October 2026.
Umm Suqeim, Al Wasl and Dubai Hills average above four; Al Karama and JVC average just over two. Small groups move with one school, so read it as a pattern, not a ranking.
Score your school’s admissions pages
Tick what is true for your school’s website today: the seven checks we ran, plus one that parents notice first.
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- Fees for every year group are on the site and match the KHDA Fees Fact Sheet
- The inspection rating is shown with its year and a link to the report
- Seat status or a waiting list is shown for each year group
- A parent can apply online without calling
- A parent can book a tour or open day online and gets a confirmation
- There is a full Arabic version, not only a translation plug-in
- The admissions pages link to WhatsApp, and admissions answers it
- The link in KHDA’s directory opens your current website
Under five, parents are doing work your website could do for them.
Questions UAE buyers ask
Our site has these features, so why were we scored lower?
We read the HTML a server sends, on pages linked from the homepage, so content built in the browser or fees inside images can be missed. The CSV lists every page we checked.
Does a translation plug-in count as an Arabic version?
We didn’t count it: nobody has reviewed the Arabic a plug-in produces, and we could not confirm Arabic was enabled.
Can we see the result for our own school?
Yes. The CSV lists every website, the date checked and each result. If your school isn’t in it, we can check your site the same way.
What does it cost to fix these gaps?
It depends on your platform and how many gaps you have; our guide to website costs in Dubai explains what moves the price. OXEDGE’s own 2026 price bands are on the OXEDGE pricing page.
Work with OXEDGE
Get the full study and your own school’s admissions score.
We send you the complete study and run the same seven checks on your school’s website: fees, rating, seats, applications, tours, Arabic and WhatsApp. You get your score and a short list of fixes in order of impact.
