GCC Private K12 Education Market - Growth, Trends, COVID-19 Impact, and Forecasts (2023 - 2028)

GCC Private K12 Education Market - Growth, Trends, COVID-19 Impact, and Forecasts (2023 - 2028)

The GCC Private K12 Education Market is estimated at USD 15.5 billion in the current year and is poised to grow at a CAGR of greater than 7% during the forecasted period. The GCC private education market is expected to grow at an increasing rate, in the coming years, due to various government initiatives, like Saudi Vision 2030, the rising awareness of primary education, the requirement of higher education options, the need for overall improvement in the quality of education, and an increase in the population, including that of expatriates.

The COVID-19 pandemic helped private educational institutions and students in adapting to remote learning owing to the restrictions and lockdowns imposed by local governments. Governments also undertook special efforts during this period to ensure smooth operations of the educational system. For instance, Saudi Arabia launched the 'Madrasati' e-learning platform in 2020. The platform was ranked among the seven top global e-learning platforms, according to a study conducted by Online Learning Consortium (OLC) in 2021.

Moreover, in today’s world, with the steady growth of awareness among parents, educational institutions, and investors, about the need for primary education, there is a major demand for high-quality education, which will boost the tuition fees of private schools. But there is an insufficiency of educational resources in the market. The limited nature and shortage of resources available for the students is one of the biggest challenges for the K-12 education market in GCC. These countries are facing an acute shortage of skilled teachers and staff, and the pupil-to-teacher ratio is quite low across the region.

In order to improve the quality of education, several initiatives have been taken during the past few years such as establishing quality assurance authorities, building guidelines, and encouraging technology-driven education, among others, which have combined to display improvements across the quality of education.

Over the last few years, governments in the GCC region have undertaken a number of initiatives, most notably the introduction of favorable policies, which encourage private sector participation in the education sector. The governments in the GCC Countries have tried to increase the market share of private sectors in the industry by implementing initiatives like 100% foreign ownership. Furthermore, favorable demographics like majority of population in the school going age, rising expatriate population as a result of government policies providing 10-year residency visas and higher GDP per capita are also driving the demand for education in the GCC. The governments in the GCC region are also continuing to allocate sizable portions of their budget to the education sector.

As a result, the K-12 private education market has gained prominence over the past few years and has become an attractive opportunity for investors and school operators. This had led to a direct impact on the investments from the private sector to capitalize on government's initiatives across the region.

In the GCC countries, consumer spending on education rose positively per person in 2020. The top GCC nations in terms of consumer spending on education per capita were the UAE and Saudi Arabia, followed by Qatar and Kuwait. The market is being driven by this increase in consumer spending on education per person.

The total number of teachers of all academic levels in the Gulf Cooperation Council is 960.7 thousand, with an increase of 5.9 thousand from 2015-2016, with an average annual growth of 0.2%.

The Saudi Vision 2030 aims to support the growth of the education sector, which is one of its main pillars. The population of Saudi Arabia is expected to grow during the next 11 years from 34.17 million currently to 44.9 million, indicating that the number of students enrolled in schools is 6 million students and that population growth will create the need to add 1.1 or 2.1 million new seats to meet the needs of students by the year 2030.

The industry is quite fragmented, with many players operating in the private sector and many more entering, due to favorable investment options. Some of the pre-existing private players include Al- Jazeera Academy, the British International School of Jeddah, Dhuha International School, Dubai International Academy, GEMS Education, the International School of London, Nadeen International School, Taaleem, and The American International School of Muscat.

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