IB IGCSE Tutor for Swiss International Scientific School Students in Dubai

The Bilingual Diploma is a real distinction and families at bilingual schools frequently pursue it without knowing the requirement, which means the decision gets made by accident on a subject form. The award can be obtained on more than one basis. One route involves completing two languages studied at A level of the programme. Another involves completing a group three or group four subject — an individuals and societies subject, or a science — in a language other than the student's nominated language A. There is also a route through the Extended Essay in a second language A.

Those are not interchangeable in workload. Two languages A means two sets of set texts, two written paper sets and two oral components, carried alongside four other subjects and the core. Completing a science in a second language means one extra layer of difficulty on an existing subject rather than an extra subject. For some students the first is natural and the second would be punishing; for others it is the reverse. Nothing about this is obvious from the outside, which is why it should be discussed before the form rather than after.

The practical instruction is narrow and important: ask the coordinator to confirm the current basis for the award in writing, and to say which of your child's provisional subject choices would satisfy it. Requirements are specific and they are periodically revised, so a figure or a rule read on a third-party page — including this one — is not a safe planning basis. The school holds the version that governs the cohort.

Where tutoring fits is in making the chosen route survivable. If the route is two languages A, the workload needs managing and the oral components need rehearsing, because they are rehearsable and students rarely do it. If the route is a subject in a second language, the early work is technical vocabulary and command terms in that language, which is a four to six session job rather than a two-year commitment. Both are cheap compared with abandoning the route in Year 13.

Dubai's subject tutoring market is deep, and depth means competitive pricing. The emirate had 387,441 students across 227 private schools offering seventeen curricula in 2024-25, and a sector that size employs many subject teachers. A qualified online subject tutor sits at roughly AED 150 to 300 an hour on published rates read in October 2026, with named IB specialists at roughly AED 200 to 450 or more and a single provider publishing AED 650.

Language work inside a Diploma programme is a different market, and the reason is not prestige. The relevant pool is not people who speak French or German. It is people who have taught a Diploma language A course, or a Diploma science in that language, and who know the assessment: the oral components, the set-text requirements, the criteria. That is a much smaller group than the set of fluent speakers, and it is smaller again for German than for French in this region. Scarcity in a deep market usually shows up as a waiting period rather than a premium, which is a better outcome for a family and a worse one for a deadline.

The implication is that language requests should be made earlier and specified more precisely than subject requests. Say which language, which course and level, and whether the need is the language itself or a subject taught in it. Those three facts determine whether a match exists at all. A vague request for a French tutor produces a fluent speaker; a precise request for somebody who has taught French A: Language and Literature at Standard Level produces either the right person or an honest no.

There is also a cheaper possibility that gets missed. A substantial share of what looks like a language problem in a bilingual science or mathematics class is technical vocabulary and command terms, not fluency. That is a four to six session block with a subject specialist who works in the language, rather than a two-year engagement with a language teacher. The first diagnostic should distinguish the two, and asking for that distinction explicitly is worth doing before any package is bought.

This is the diagnostic that matters most in a bilingual household and it is rarely done. A student losing marks in a science taught in their second language has one of three problems, and they need completely different responses. Either they do not understand the science. Or they understand it and lack the technical vocabulary to express it in the language of assessment. Or they understand it, have the vocabulary, and are misreading command terms in that language, which is a specific and narrow failure.

Distinguishing them takes one session and a marked script. Give the student the same question in both languages. If the answer is correct in the stronger language and wrong in the weaker one, the science is intact and the problem is linguistic. If it is wrong in both, the science is the problem and language is a secondary issue. If the answer is correct in substance but addresses the wrong command — describing where the paper asked for an explanation — then the fault is command-term recognition in that language, which is the cheapest of the three to fix.

That third case is more common than families expect, because command terms are a small closed vocabulary that carries disproportionate weight. Explain, evaluate, analyse, discuss, justify, compare and outline each specify what an answer must do, and the mark scheme is built around that specification. A student who knows the science and misreads the command writes something true and scores a fraction. In a second language that misreading is more likely and equally fixable: an hour sorting past questions by command term in the language of assessment moves marks quickly.

The reason to insist on this diagnostic before buying a package is financial as well as pedagogical. The linguistic and command-term cases are four to six session blocks. The conceptual case is a term of weekly subject teaching. Buying the second when you needed the first is one of the more expensive mistakes available in a bilingual programme, and nobody will stop you making it.

A boarding student is in a different logistical position from a day student, and in some respects a better one. The hours are structured: boarding houses have study periods, and a fixed online session inside one of them is usually straightforward to arrange with house staff, though it needs asking rather than assuming. Once arranged, that slot is more reliable than any day student's, because nothing depends on an afternoon commute across Dubai.

What boarding changes is the parent's visibility. A day student's parent hears about a bad week; a boarding parent often does not until a report. That makes the written evidence trail more important rather than less: a risk list from the first diagnostic, updated monthly, with each item marked closed, improving or unchanged and the marked work attached. Ask for it monthly and read it, because it replaces the informal signal that a day family gets for free.

Weekly commuting, for families based outside Dubai or travelling between the UAE and elsewhere, changes which days are usable rather than removing them. A student travelling at the start and end of the week has three reliable evenings rather than five, and the slot should sit in the middle of that window rather than at either edge. Travel abroad is handled as a one-off time adjustment rather than a cancelled term, which is the practical advantage of an online arrangement over a travelling tutor.

What does not change in either case is the internal deadline calendar. Internal assessment and core deadlines are set by the school, arrive in clusters, and land hardest in the autumn of the final Diploma year alongside mocks. They do not pause for a travel week or a boarding routine. Ask the coordinator for the whole calendar at the start of the first Diploma year, and agree in advance what sessions will contain during a cluster: process coaching on the piece that is due rather than subject teaching that competes with it.

In a bilingual continuum there is no terminal examination until the final two years, which means a language asymmetry can persist for a long time without producing a visible result. It still produces marks, though, and they are visible in the Middle Years criterion breakdown if anybody looks. That document is the early-warning system, and most families never ask for it.

In language acquisition the assessment divides across listening, reading, speaking and writing, each marked out of eight, with phase rather than year group setting expectations. A student can look broadly competent while one skill carrying a quarter of the grade sits well below the others. Speaking is usually that skill, because it is least practised in a classroom and most uncomfortable to practise alone. It is also the most improvable in a short run of focused sessions, which makes it a good first target.

In subject groups taught in a second language the hiding place is criterion communicating, where it exists, or the equivalent descriptor about using appropriate terminology. A student who understands the material and cannot express it in the language of instruction scores well on knowing and understanding and poorly on communicating, which averages to an unremarkable grade and conceals a specific, fixable problem. The remedy is terminology and written structure, not more content.

The first thing to check before any of this, however, is placement. Being in the wrong phase or the wrong course — ab initio rather than B, or B at Standard rather than Higher — is a common and entirely fixable cause of apparent underperformance, and it costs nothing to establish. Ask the school which phase or course your child is in and on what basis, and ask whether a change is possible. That question has resolved more apparent language problems than any amount of tutoring.

For completeness, the published bands read in October 2026. Budget online platforms and university-student tutors between roughly AED 45 and 150 an hour, some entry rates quoted from AED 33. A qualified subject tutor online at roughly AED 150 to 300, with one agency publishing IGCSE from AED 150 and IB from AED 200. A named IB, IGCSE or A Level specialist at roughly AED 200 to 450 or more, with one agency publishing AED 270. In-home one-to-one visits including travel at roughly AED 180 to 500. One provider publishes AED 650 at the premium end. Monthly packages advertised include around AED 799 for eight online sessions and roughly AED 1,599 to 1,799 for four two-hour in-home sessions.

Those belong to the providers that published them. Three of the six pages competing for searches like this one publish no price at all and the two that do quote in US dollars, which no Dubai family budgets in. They are reproduced here so that a parent has a reference range, not as an endorsement of anybody. IB Gram's own figure follows the free trial lesson and depends on subject, level, language and frequency, which is why a single number would mislead.

Five questions settle almost any price conversation and should be answered in writing. Does the figure include VAT. Is the rate per hour or per session, and how long is a session. What happens if we stop after one month. Who marks work between sessions, in which language, and is that time inside the rate. And what happens if the matched tutor becomes unavailable, including whether the written risk list hands over.

For a bilingual household add a sixth: in which language will work be marked and feedback given. A tutor marking a French A essay in English is giving feedback the student then has to translate, which loses most of its value. It sounds like a small point and it is the difference between useful marking and decorative marking.

No statement about the UAE VAT treatment of tuition fees, because making one responsibly requires a Federal Tax Authority citation and there is none here. No fine amount for unpermitted tutoring, because the ministry published no schedule and the figure circulating online could not be verified. No IB points threshold for Ministry of Education equivalency, because no official source for one could be read; the British-track figures are published and the IB one is not. No IB examination or results date, because the organisation's own site could not be checked. No star rating, satisfaction percentage or student count, because none could be produced with a sample size, a date and a method.

On permits, the relevant fact is that the cost is zero. The private tuition work permit was introduced by Ministerial Resolution No. 710 of 2023, is granted free of charge for two years, and is applied for through the Ministry of Human Resources and Emiratisation's own service with a stated two working days to complete. Eligible applicants include school-registered teachers, government and private-sector employees, unemployed residents, university students and school students aged 15 to 18. Individuals tutoring without one are subject to fines and penalties under the applicable laws.

On assessed work the line is authorship and it is not negotiable. A tutor may teach content, explain each criterion in the board's published wording, show how a comparable piece is built, read a draft the student has written and name which criterion it misses, and teach them to fix it themselves. A tutor may not write the internal assessment, draft the Extended Essay, or edit a piece to completion so the words become theirs. The caps are 4,000 words on the Extended Essay, 1,600 on the Theory of Knowledge essay, 950 on the exhibition commentary, 3,000 on the sciences investigation and 800 per Economics commentary.

And position. IB Gram is not approved, accredited, licensed or partnered by the International Baccalaureate, Cambridge International, Pearson, the Ministry of Education, the Knowledge and Human Development Authority, the Department of Education and Knowledge, the Sharjah Private Education Authority or the Ministry of Human Resources and Emiratisation. It holds no such relationship, claims none, operates no premises in the UAE, and has no arrangement with any school named on this page.

Three pieces of information, all free, make a sensible start possible. The phase or course your child is placed in for each language, and on what basis. The criterion breakdown behind the most recent reported grade in the subject that worries you, not the grade itself. And for a Diploma student, the coordinator's internal deadline calendar plus written confirmation of the current basis for a Bilingual Diploma if that award is the goal.

Then specify the request precisely, because in language work precision is what determines whether a match exists. Which language, which course and level, and whether the need is the language itself or a subject taught in it. A vague request produces a fluent speaker; a precise one produces either the right specialist or an honest statement that nobody is available in the slot you want, which is more useful than a substitution.

Then run the diagnostic that separates the three cases: conceptual, vocabulary, or command-term recognition. Same question in both languages, plus a marked script. Two of the three are a four to six session block rather than a term of weekly teaching, and buying the wrong one is the main way money disappears in a bilingual programme.

The limit, stated once more. No tutor is sent to an Al Jaddaf address or anywhere else in the UAE; lessons are one-to-one over live video on Gulf Standard Time. For a boarding student that is the only practical arrangement anyway, and for a day student in a city with heavy afternoon traffic it means the slot is a start time rather than an arrival window. The reason to choose it here is narrower than convenience: a bilingual Diploma request needs somebody who has taught that course in that language, and that pool is defined by competence rather than by distance.