ABU DHABI // A French-language school that officially opened a building yesterday to cater for 550 extra students is planning to expand even further this year.
There is an increasing influx of French expatriates and the Lycee Louis Massignon school is hoping the expansion will be completed by September to accommodate up to 300 more students.
The French Embassy's cultural counsellor, David Bertolotti, said the school was in discussions with the Abu Dhabi Education Council (Adec) to take over an adjacent building, formerly the Japanese School.
Mr Bertolotti said the school had been very cramped and the new building would better accommodate the 1,700 students.
He said the planned expansion was important as it would enable them to continue to admit students of other French-speaking nationalities and Emiratis.
The director general of Adec, Dr Mugheer Al Khaili, and the French minister of state for foreign affairs, Edouard Courtial, inaugurated the three-storey classroom building yesterday.
The building, which includes two restaurants, a library, six science laboratories and 11 new classrooms, was funded by Adec in exchange for an agreement that the school will accept seven Emirati students annually for the next five years.
About 55 per cent of the students are French nationals and 10 per cent Emirati. The rest are from French-speaking countries, mainly in North Africa and Lebanon.
Dr Al Khaili said the expansion provided a way for Emirati youth to learn more languages.
"This initiative is part of Adec's plan to encourage students to develop trilingual skills while becoming exposed to various cultures and learning experiences," he said.
Mr Courtial said the increasing number of French people moving to Abu Dhabi created a need for more schools, which he said "must also benefit other community members and nationalities across Abu Dhabi".
In the past five years, France has doubled its spending on education for French nationals abroad, said Mr Courtial. There are about 5,000 French nationals living in Abu Dhabi and 10,000 in Dubai.
"The investment we do here is an example of this increase of public spending for education," he said.
Since it opened in 1982, Lycee Louis Massignon, a public school with students from kindergarten to Grade 12, has been funded and operated by the French government and is based on the French educational system.
It was established by the Society of Petroleum in 1972 as the Ecole des Societes Francaise (School of French Societies), with about 30 students in a small room.