Online tuition in the UAE
The UAE has more CBSE-affiliated schools than any country outside India - 110 of CBSE's 269 overseas schools, more than the next three countries combined. If your child is on the Indian curriculum here, tuition taught from India is not a compromise. It is the same syllabus, the same books and often the same April-to-March year.
The timing, plainly
India is an hour and a half ahead, so a 6pm class in India is 4:30pm here - comfortably after school and well before dinner.
- School week
- Monday to Friday
- Group classes
- AED 349 to AED 549/mo
- One-to-one
- from AED 599/mo
There are roughly 4.34 million overseas Indians in the UAE, the largest Indian population of any country in the world, and the schooling infrastructure reflects it. CBSE's own affiliation directory lists 110 affiliated schools in the UAE - 40.9% of all 269 CBSE schools outside India, and more than Saudi Arabia, Kuwait and Qatar combined. That matters for a practical reason most tuition providers skip past. Your child is not learning a UAE curriculum that happens to be taught in English. They are sitting the same NCERT chapters, in the same order, working towards the same Class 10 board exam as a child in Kochi or Bengaluru - which is precisely why a teacher who has taught that syllabus for years is more useful than a locally-hired tutor who has not.
Why does Indian-curriculum tuition work differently in the UAE?
Because of one fact that has no equivalent anywhere else: 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 goes as far as publishing a dedicated "Asian curricula" calendar.
The practical consequence is that a large share of Indian-curriculum children in the UAE are on 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 in step with it.
One honest caveat: 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.
Does it matter which emirate we live in?
For an online class, not much - but the local context genuinely differs, and it is worth knowing which applies to you.
| Emirate | Regulator | Approx. CBSE schools |
|---|---|---|
| Dubai | KHDA, which has inspected private schools since 2008-09 | ~31 |
| Abu Dhabi | ADEK, which requires a minimum of 175 school days a year | ~25 |
| Sharjah | SPEA, established by Emiri Decree 45 of 2018 | ~22 |
| Ajman | No emirate-level regulator - the Ministry of Education supervises directly | ~14 |
The school counts are approximate, derived from address fields in CBSE's affiliation directory rather than published as a breakdown by CBSE itself. The regulators, and the fact that Ajman and the northern emirates have none of their own, are published and verifiable.
Everything above sits under Federal Decree-Law No. 18 of 2020 on Private Education, which is the governing statute across all seven emirates.
How does the timing actually work with India?
India is one and a half hours ahead of the UAE, which is the most comfortable overlap of any market we serve. A 6pm class in India is 4:30pm here. A 7:30pm class in India is 6pm here. Both land after a Gulf school day - which starts early and finishes in the early afternoon - and well before a normal bedtime.
This is worth stating plainly because it is not true everywhere. Families in the US, UK and Australia realistically need weekend classes or very early India mornings. Gulf families do not: an ordinary India teaching evening is an ordinary UAE after-school slot. There is no compromise being papered over here.
Since 1 January 2022 the UAE weekend has been Saturday and Sunday, so weekend classes work in the same way they would for a family in India. Sharjah is the exception, running a four-day government week with a three-day weekend - see the Sharjah page if that is you.
What does this cost compared with local options?
Our group classes run from AED 349 a month for Class 1 to 5 and AED 549 for Class 9 to 10, with one-to-one from AED 599. The honest comparison is not against Indian prices, which are irrelevant to your alternatives, but against what you would otherwise pay here.
On KHDA's own published open data, median annual tuition across Dubai's 34 Indian-curriculum schools is AED 14,107 at Grade 1 and AED 17,062 at Grade 5, with the full range running from AED 2,912 to AED 47,067. Local in-person tutoring is typically quoted by the hour rather than the month. Against either, a monthly fee for sixteen live classes is a different order of spending.
| Option | Typical basis | What you get |
|---|---|---|
| Local in-person tutor | Charged per hour | One-to-one attention, but the rate scales with every extra hour and travel is built into it |
| Local tuition centre | Per term or per subject | Structure, but a timetable built around the centre's staffing rather than your child, often with changing teachers |
| Scholur group class | AED 349-549 a month | Sixteen live classes, the same teacher weekly, aligned to your child's own school books |
| Scholur one-to-one | From AED 599 a month | Twelve live classes built entirely around one child's specific gaps |
Full pricing, including what is and is not included, is on the fees page. The free assessment comes first either way - it is a real class with a real teacher, and nothing is charged before you have seen one.
Which subjects and classes do you actually cover?
Class 1 through Class 10, with the subject mix widening as the school syllabus does. Nothing below is an upsell list - it is what a child at that stage is actually taught.
| Stage | Subjects | What tuition usually focuses on |
|---|---|---|
| Class 1 to Class 3 | English, Maths, EVS, Hindi | Reading fluency, phonics, number sense and handwriting |
| Class 4 to Class 5 | English, Maths, EVS, Hindi | Comprehension, times tables applied to word problems, written expression |
| Class 6 to Class 8 | English, Maths, Science, Social Science, Hindi, Sanskrit | The jump to subject teachers, algebra, and explaining rather than reciting |
| Class 9 to Class 10 | Maths, Physics, Chemistry, Biology, English, Social Science | Board-exam technique, step-marking, timed papers |
Spoken English runs as its own track rather than folded into an English class, which matters for a child who understands English fully but answers in single words. Free printable worksheets and practice games are available whether or not you book anything.
What actually happens in a class, and what if we miss one?
Classes are live, not recorded lessons with a person attached. A group class runs 50 minutes, sixteen times a month; one-to-one runs 45 minutes, twelve times a month. 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, you get the recording, and the teacher picks up the thread the following week rather than pretending it did not happen. Between classes a short WhatsApp note tells you plainly what was covered and what to keep an eye on - no jargon, nothing to decode.
What happens at the free assessment?
It is one real live class, not a sales call with a teacher on standby. A teacher spends time with your child on actual work - a topic they are stuck on, a recent test, whatever you bring - and you are welcome to sit in. Many UAE parents do, particularly the first time.
Afterwards you get an honest note on what the teacher noticed. That includes the uncomfortable version: if the real problem is a gap two classes below where your child currently is, we say so, and if we think tuition is not what your child needs at all, we say that too. Our post on the signs a child actually needs a tutor exists partly to talk some parents out of booking.
No card is taken and there is nothing to cancel. The most useful thing you can bring is something specific - a marked paper, a homework page with the same error repeated, the name of the chapter their class is on. That lets a teacher see the actual pattern inside half an hour instead of guessing from a description. Book one here.
What if we move back to India, or on to another country?
Nothing about the teaching changes, and this is one of the genuinely practical arguments for being taught from India in the first place. Same teacher, same syllabus, same books - and if the new time zone still suits the old slot, the same class times too.
For a family returning to India, that means the move is a change of address rather than a change of school system. The child walks into a Class 7 classroom in Kochi or Pune already on the chapter that class is covering, because they never left the Indian syllabus. Compare that with a child who has spent four years on a British or American curriculum and has to reconcile two different systems mid-schooling.
Moving between Gulf states is even simpler, since the syllabus is identical and the time difference is at most an hour: we teach in Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Oman and Bahrain as well, and fees simply switch to that country's currency. The one thing worth flagging early is a board change, since moving between CBSE and ICSE mid-year needs planning - our post on choosing between the two covers what actually differs.
Why families in the UAE choose a teacher in India
Not because it is cheaper. Because your child is sitting the Indian syllabus, and the people who know that syllabus best are the ones who teach it every day.
- The same NCERT books and chapter sequence your child's school is already working through
- A teacher who has taught the Class 10 board syllabus repeatedly, not someone learning it alongside your child
- India is only 90 minutes ahead, so an after-school class here lands in a normal teaching evening there
- No commute in Gulf summer heat, and no second school run at 5pm
- Fees set against local alternatives - Dubai's median Grade 5 school tuition alone is AED 17,062 a year on KHDA's own data
Fees in AED, published
Set for United Arab Emirates rather than converted from Indian rates, and listed here rather than quoted on a call.
- Group Class - Spoken EnglishAED 249
- Group Class - All SubjectsAED 349 to AED 549
- One-to-OneAED 599 to AED 899
Inside the UAE
Each one written from its own verified local facts, not a template with the place name swapped in.
Tuition in the UAE, honestly answered
Is the syllabus really identical to what my child studies in Dubai or Sharjah?
For CBSE and ICSE schools, yes - the same NCERT or council books, the same chapter sequence, the same Class 10 board exam at the end. That is the whole basis for teaching from India. Where a school has adapted something locally, the teacher works from your child's actual school books rather than a generic plan.
Are your teachers based in India or in the UAE?
In India. That is deliberate rather than a cost decision: a teacher who has taught the CBSE or ICSE syllabus repeatedly, to the same board exam, is more useful for an Indian-curriculum child than a locally-hired tutor who has not. India being only 90 minutes behind makes it work practically.
Do we pay in dirhams or rupees?
In dirhams, at prices set for this market rather than converted from Indian rates. Group classes start at AED 349 a month and one-to-one at AED 599. Everything is published on the fees page rather than quoted over a call.
My child's school follows the April-to-March year. Does that fit your teaching?
It fits it exactly, because that is the Indian school year our teachers work to. KHDA and SPEA both publish an official April-start calendar for Indian-curriculum schools, so if your child's school uses it, our terms and your child's terms move together. Check your specific school's profile, since neither authority publishes which schools follow which calendar.
What if we move back to India partway through the year?
Nothing changes about the teaching - same teacher, same syllabus, same class times if you want them. This is one of the practical advantages of being taught from India on the Indian curriculum: a move home is a change of address rather than a change of school system.
Which classes and subjects do you cover for UAE families?
Do you teach children in Abu Dhabi, Ajman and the northern emirates too?
Is a group class or one-to-one better for our situation?
For steady weekly support across a subject, a group class is usually enough and is the better value. For a specific gap that needs closing quickly, one-to-one is faster because the entire session goes on that child's actual difficulty. We will tell you which we think applies at the assessment rather than defaulting to the more expensive one.
Send us your child's book list. We plan around it.
One free live class first, with no card and nothing to cancel. Afterwards you get an honest note on what the teacher actually noticed.
- You tell us the class, board and what is going wrong.
- We match a teacher who has taught exactly that, and send you a time.
- A free 20-minute assessment. Sit beside your child if you like.
- No card, no commitment
- Live classes, never a crowd
- The same teacher every week