Dear Manish,

It is very difficult to answer your question without more information about your son’s current schooling.  Is he currently in mainstream education?  Which curriculum are you following? Is he in the age-appropriate grade – and when is his date of birth?

There are a number of schools that work with children with special needs – these included Rashid Pediatric Therapy Centre, Al  Noor Centre for Special Needs, Dubai Centre for Special Needs among others.  There is also a school which is run by i-Cademy Middle East (formerly K12) which offers support to SEN children and may well be worth contacting.  Depending on your son’s needs, they may also be able to assist you through their main on-line learning centre.  Depending on whether your son needs SEN support in a non-mainstream environment, one of these may be an option.   In Sharjah, Sharjah City for Humanitarian Services and Al Manzil Center may be able to assist you.  All of these organisations (which are generally run as charities) take students to the age of 21.

Many mainstream schools in Dubai offer support to children with SEN who are academically able to attend a mainstream school.   If your son’s only issue is his hearing but he is otherwise academically able,  then you should consider this option – but depending on your son’s current curriculum and grade in school, this may be more of a challenge since he would usually be in his second to last or last year of school.

Please let me know more details and I can then see whether we can make further suggestions.

Many Thanks for your response and guide in above content.
My son DOB 03-06-2000, he is currently studying in grade 7 of ACE curriculum from USA, he is perfectly fine accept hearing impairment as that was accidental and we got his implant done when he was 4 years of age and thats how he is behind 4-5 years as per his age.

In Africa we never had opportunity to put him to any IGCSE – IB curriculum as not equipped to handle CI kids, but when in Canada for some time he was in main stream only.

I will highly appreciate your input as we are moving August End this year and I understand September is the calendar term to start.

Best Regards
mdubeymail@gmail.com

Hi Manish,

Unfortunately, your son’s age versus appropriate grade is likely to be a major challenge in applying to a mainstream school in the UAE.  Local regulations do not permit a difference of more than two years in age as this is felt to be disadvantageous to both the incoming student and others in the class due to the difference in both social, emotional and physical development.  You will therefore need to approach the Special Needs schools that I mentioned in my earlier reply.

I would strongly recommend that since your son’s only requirement is in relation to his hearing disability that you contact i-cademy as they are most likely to be able to support your son and would have availability. i-cademy is registered with the KHDA in Dubai so that your son can be registered with the local regulator as he would be in a mainstream school and can be issued with the appropriate transfer certificate when he finishes his studies.  They follow the US curriculum.   If this is not an option, I have no doubt that they will also be able to guide you further.  https://whichschooladvisor.com/uae/school-review/icademy  

Good day, thanks a ton for your valuable advice this really gives us lot of confidence for not to worry now as there are options.
We will also look into vocational / occupational skills training or learning simultaneously as part time or week end sessions type which will further enhance his capability to work  in future ,  if you could through some light on this as well will be a great help to us.

Thanking you

Best Regards
MANISH