Doha: Qatar's private education community responsibility project has expanded sharply, with the number of free and discounted school and kindergarten seats rising to 16,500, up from just 40 seats when the project began less than a year ago.

Director of the Department of Private Schools and Kindergartens Dr. Rania Mohamed said participation now exceeds 120 private schools and kindergartens, supported by measures including allowing schools to offer more than one curriculum, open additional operating periods, and apply capacity regulations more flexibly. The project offers four categories of support: completely free seats for students of all nationalities; discounted seats ranging from 20% to 70%; fully free seats for students with disabilities; and educational-voucher seats where the ministry covers QR28,000 and schools cover any excess amount.

Of the 16,500 seats, around 5,000 are being offered through the educational-voucher category for Qatari students. The number of schools offering voucher seats has risen from 17 to 25, with new participants including Al Maha, Al Jazeera, West Virginia, and King's College schools. More than 7,000 students have already been placed in available seats, with around 1,000 placed through the voucher category. Seats for students with disabilities have also increased from 130 to 330 fully free seats.

The expansion is linked to Qatar's policy of making land available to investors to build schools, with schools receiving state-provided land now required to allocate at least 20% of capacity to the project. The ministry has received more than 17,000 electronic applications so far. Qatar's private education sector currently offers 24 different educational curricula.

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