IB Private Tutor in Dubai: Permits, Models and What to Ask

A private tutor in the UAE is a person holding a private tuition work permit, issued by the Ministry of Human Resources and Emiratisation under Ministerial Resolution No. 710 of 2023. The permit is granted free of charge for two years. The ministry's service page for it, listed as Issuance of a New Work Permit for Private Tutor Licensing, states no fee and a two-working-day completion time, with applications made through the ministry's smart app, website and e-services system.

Eligibility is deliberately wide. Teachers registered in government or private schools qualify. So do employees in the government and private sectors, unemployed individuals, university students, and school pupils aged 15 to 18. That last category surprises parents and is explicit in the published eligibility list, which tells you something useful about the intended scope: the resolution regularises an existing informal market rather than restricting tutoring to professionals.

The consequence of operating outside it is stated but not quantified. Individuals offering private tutoring without a permit are subject to fines and penalties outlined in the applicable laws. No fine schedule has been published, and press reporting on the regime noted explicitly that the ministry did not specify the fine amounts or detail the penalties. A figure circulates online; it could not be verified, so it does not appear here, and any provider quoting you one is repeating something unchecked.

What the permit does not do is worth saying plainly. It is not a teaching qualification, not a subject endorsement, and not a statement about Higher Level competence. A permitted tutor may be a Diploma examiner or a first-year undergraduate. Legality and expertise are two separate checks, and a parent who conflates them has done one of the two things that matter.

The table below sets out the eligible categories from the published rules, with what a parent can usefully check in each case. It is the only such table in this market, which is remarkable given that one competitor ranks substantially on a single subheading about licensing.

Two conditions cut across the categories. The permit carries a code of conduct, and that code bars serving pupils affiliated with the tutor's own school. Separately, in Abu Dhabi, ADEK's professional-ethics rules for private and charter school staff prohibit teachers from providing paid private tutoring to pupils enrolled at their own school. Those rules are press-reported rather than read from the current policy document, so verify them against ADEK directly before relying on the exact wording, but the direction is unambiguous.

For employed tutors there is an additional practical question a parent cannot answer and should still ask. A government or private-sector employee applying for a private tuition permit is operating alongside an existing employment relationship, and whether their employer's internal policy permits it is a matter between them. A tutor who has thought about this will say so; one who looks blank has not.

The verification route is simple and almost nobody uses it. Ask the individual whether they hold a current private tuition work permit, when it expires, and under which category they applied. A tutor operating properly answers without hesitation. The answer is not something a platform can supply on an individual's behalf, which is why the question belongs to the parent even when a platform made the introduction.

Every competitor page in this market compares itself against an unnamed set of other platforms, which tells a parent nothing. A useful comparison compares models, with rates attributed to whoever published them and the date noted. The figures below come from published provider pages and a 2026 Dubai tutoring cost survey.

What separates the models is not quality but where the risk sits. With an independent tutor, the family carries verification, record-keeping and replacement risk, and pays less for it. With a platform, the intermediary carries those and charges for them. With a tuition centre, the premises and the timetable carry the cost, and group delivery makes the hourly figure lower while making the attention per pupil lower too.

The rate column is wide in every model for the reason given earlier: subject and level drive price more than business model does. A Higher Level Chemistry specialist costs more than an SL Biology tutor in every one of these models. What the model changes is what happens in the three situations that actually arise, which are a tutor leaving mid-term, a match that is not working, and a dispute about what was agreed.

On our own row, two things are stated rather than implied. IB Gram does not offer in-home visiting anywhere in the UAE, so the in-home column reads no for us and that is a model decision rather than a shortfall. And no own-price figure appears, because a single number across every subject, level and frequency would be misleading. The figure is agreed at the consultation after the free trial lesson.

A parent can do most of the useful due diligence in a single email, and the questions are specific enough that evasive answers are obvious. None of them is about qualifications in the abstract, because a qualification does not tell you whether someone has taught the level your child sits.

The first is the permit question: do you hold a current private tuition work permit, and when does it expire. The second is the level question, asked as a subject-specific question rather than a general one: what does a candidate lose a mark for in this specific component. The third is the record question: what will I receive after each session, and what will the four-week review measure.

The fourth is the boundary question, and it is the one that separates this market most sharply. Ask what the tutor will do if your child asks them to look over a nearly finished internal assessment the night before submission. The right answer involves declining to supply text and explaining the academic-honesty consequence. Any version of getting it finished is a reason to stop the conversation.

The fifth is the commercial question, itemised: is the rate per sixty minutes or per session, is there a minimum block, is coursework support inside the figure, what are the cancellation terms, and does the quoted amount include value added tax. On tax specifically, the treatment of tuition fees is a matter for the Federal Tax Authority rather than for any tutoring website, so the only safe question is whether the specific figure you have been quoted is inclusive.

Lead forms in this market routinely collect a child's school, year group, grades and sometimes a photograph, with no stated purpose and no visible privacy information. That is a data protection question, and in the UAE it sits under Federal Decree-Law No. 45 of 2021 on the Protection of Personal Data.

The practical standard a parent should expect is modest and almost nobody meets it: a clear statement of what is collected, why it is needed, how long it is kept and how to have it deleted, with a privacy link on the same page as the form. Information about a minor deserves that at minimum, and a provider who cannot say why they need your child's school name probably does not need it.

Our own position is that the minimum set of facts needed to answer a tutoring enquiry honestly is the subject, the level, the target and one piece of marked work. The school name is useful context for coursework deadlines and option blocks, and it is not required. A photograph is never required. A grade history is useful and should be shared only once a family has decided to proceed.

There is a related question about who sees a child's marked work. A script shared for diagnosis is a document about a minor's academic performance, and it should be used for that diagnosis and not retained beyond it without a reason. Asking a provider what happens to the script after the assessment is a reasonable question and the answer is revealing.

A recurring suggestion in Dubai parent networks is to engage your child's own subject teacher privately, on the reasoning that nobody knows the pupil or the course better. It is the arrangement to avoid, for rule-based reasons and for a practical one that families find more persuasive.

On the rules: the private tuition permit carries a code of conduct that bars serving pupils affiliated with the tutor's own school, and in Abu Dhabi ADEK's professional-ethics rules for private and charter school staff prohibit teachers from providing paid private tutoring to pupils enrolled at their own school. Those rules are press-reported, so verify the current wording with the authority or the school rather than relying on a summary, including this one.

On the practice: the person who set your child's assessment is not the person best placed to show them how an external examiner reads an answer. Internal marking develops its own habits, generous in some places and severe in others, and a candidate coached by their own marker can become excellent at satisfying that marker specifically. The session that moves a Diploma grade is usually the one that introduces an unfamiliar, external reading of the same script.

There is also a conflict nobody discusses comfortably. A teacher who is paid by a family holds a position in relation to that family's child inside school as well as outside it, and both parties feel the awkwardness the first time an internal grade disappoints. The cleanest arrangement is a specialist who has no role in the pupil's school at all.

IB Gram has no premises, office or centre in the UAE, and no page on this site will suggest otherwise. Two competitor pages examined for this project show a UAE footer address on a page about a different emirate, and two route UAE parents to a non-UAE phone number as the conversion path. Both are trust failures, and an address a business does not occupy is a misrepresentation.

The operating consequence is that teaching for UAE families is delivered one-to-one over live video on Gulf Standard Time, and that in-home visiting is available only in India. A parent who wants a person in the room should hire locally, and should do so with the verification questions above in hand rather than on a recommendation alone.

What the model buys is the thing that is actually scarce in Dubai. A Higher Level Chemistry specialist, or a tutor who has supervised an Economics commentary portfolio, is rare within any single community and considerably less rare across a national pool. A family in Dubai South chooses from the same specialists as a family in Al Barsha, and neither pays for a drive.

What it costs is the things presence provides, and they are worth naming rather than dismissing. A tutor in the room reads a pupil's body language more fully than a camera does. For younger children, physical presence helps with attention. For a pupil with specific access requirements, in-person support may be the right answer, and a family in that position should hire locally and pay the premium without apology.

Over a two-year Diploma, three failures account for almost every unhappy tutoring arrangement in this market, and none of them is about teaching quality. Knowing them in advance is how a family writes an agreement that survives them.

The first is departure. Dubai's population moves, and a tutor leaving the country in March of DP2 is a genuine and common event. A family contracting directly with an individual has no remedy and starts the search in the worst month of the year. The protection is not a longer contract; it is knowing in advance who, if anyone, is responsible for finding a replacement.

The second is the quiet mismatch. The sessions happen, everyone is pleasant, and nothing moves. This is why a review instrument agreed in advance matters so much: without one, the arrangement continues on goodwill until the mock arrives. With one, the four-week review either shows a changed pattern of lost marks or it does not, and the conversation is about evidence rather than about anyone's feelings.

The third is the boundary failure, and it usually arrives at 10pm the night before a coursework deadline. A candidate under pressure asks for more than feedback, and a tutor who wants to be helpful supplies a paragraph. The consequence falls on the candidate and can extend to the loss of a Diploma. The protection is to have agreed the boundary in writing at the start, so that the answer in the moment is a reference to something already settled rather than a judgement made at 10pm.