K12 was recently asked how the ongoing conflict involving Iran could affect the GCC international-school market. It is a reasonable question, but not one that lends itself to a simple answer.
This is not an attempt to assess the conflict itself, predict its outcome or offer a geopolitical forecast. We have instead reviewed the evidence currently available across education, economic activity, expatriate mobility, regulation and school-sector investment to consider a narrower commercial question: what, if anything, is the conflict beginning to change for international schools, operators and investors in the Gulf?
Some effects are already visible. Schools have moved between in-person and remote learning, international examinations have required contingency arrangements, families and employees have temporarily relocated, and aviation, shipping and business activity have experienced disruption. At the same time, school demand has proved more resilient than the disruption might initially suggest. Major operators have continued recruiting, new international schools have opened, and significant capacity is still entering markets such as Dubai.
The emerging picture is therefore more nuanced than either “the conflict changes nothing” or “the GCC growth story has fundamentally weakened”. At this stage, the evidence points more towards a stress test of the assumptions that have supported international-school growth across the region.
The disruption is real
The first point should not be understated: education in parts of the Gulf has experienced material operational disruption. Qatar moved educational institutions to distance learning as a precautionary measure at the beginning of March, before a phased return and the full resumption of in-person learning on 12 April.1
International examination systems were also affected. Cambridge International cancelled its June 2026 examination series in Bahrain, Kuwait, Qatar and the UAE, replacing examinations with a portfolio-of-evidence route for affected IGCSE, O Level and International AS & A Level students.2 The International Baccalaureate introduced regional contingency measures and, in the UAE, non-exam arrangements were subsequently used for affected students.3
For operators, the significance is not simply that schools had to move online or adapt assessment arrangements. Geopolitical contingency planning moved very quickly from a risk-management document into an operating requirement. Continuity of learning, communication with families, digital infrastructure, examination contingency, staff welfare and emergency decision-making all became part of day-to-day school operations.
Disruption has not yet translated into structural demand decline
The more commercially important question is whether the disruption is affecting demand. Here, the evidence is less dramatic.
In June, GEMS Education told Reuters that new registrations in the UAE had softened slightly amid regional uncertainty and fewer international relocations into Dubai. At the height of the disruption, about 1.5% of its UAE students had temporarily relocated overseas. Even then, GEMS had reached around 90% of its targeted new sales and said that its wider growth plans remained intact.4
By late September, the position had strengthened. GEMS reported that it had achieved almost 99% of its new-sales target for the start of the academic year. Taaleem reported continued enrolment growth, while Harrow International School Dubai opened with around 400 founding pupils, ahead of its original business-plan target.5
None of this proves that the conflict has had no effect. Families did leave temporarily, some relocations were delayed and parts of the international mobility pipeline slowed. What the evidence does suggest is that temporary disruption should not automatically be interpreted as structural demand destruction.
The evidence available so far does not support the conclusion that expatriate demand for private international education in the UAE has entered a sustained decline. That distinction matters because the commercial implications of a temporary admissions pause are very different from those of a structural reduction in the addressable market.
Mobility may be the more sensitive indicator
International-school demand is closely connected to mobility. Companies deploy employees, families relocate, housing is occupied and children require schools. If that movement slows for long enough, the effect eventually appears in admissions pipelines.
There is evidence that the conflict affected corporate mobility during its most disrupted periods. Reuters reported in March that Bloomberg allowed Gulf-based staff to temporarily relocate outside the region, while several financial institutions moved employees to remote-working arrangements.6 School-sector evidence points in the same direction: some families postponed moves and international relocation flows softened during the period of greatest uncertainty.
More recent reporting suggests that at least part of that delayed demand is returning. UAE school leaders have reported renewed enquiries from families who had previously postponed relocation, while Nord Anglia International School Dubai said that most of the pupils who temporarily left during the disruption were returning for the 2026–27 academic year.7
Conclusions should remain cautious. There is not enough evidence to describe an expatriate exodus or a structural change in international mobility. For schools that depend on a continuous inflow of internationally mobile families, however, relocation patterns may be one of the most useful leading indicators to monitor.
Pricing assumptions have also been tested
In May, Dubai confirmed that private-school fees would not increase for the 2026–27 academic year. The measure formed part of a wider economic-support package, with private education institutions also offered measures including deferral or instalment arrangements for licence-renewal fees and certain fines.8
For families, the objective is clear: greater stability and affordability during a period of uncertainty. For operators and investors, the decision has another implication because many school investment models assume some combination of enrolment growth, increasing utilisation and periodic tuition growth.
A fee freeze demonstrates that, in exceptional conditions, those assumptions cannot necessarily be treated independently of the wider economic and regulatory environment. It does not undermine the economics of GCC international education, but it does reinforce the case for stress-testing revenue growth against regulatory as well as demand scenarios.
Yet new school capacity is still entering the market
If the conflict had already produced a broad loss of confidence in the UAE education market, one might expect expansion to slow sharply. That is not what the current evidence shows.
In August, Dubai's Knowledge and Human Development Authority announced that seven new private schools would open during the 2026–27 academic year, adding 16,846 places. Those schools form part of 26 new private education institutions opening across the emirate. KHDA also reported 3.1% growth in private-school enrolment over the previous three years and described continued sector expansion despite the exceptional circumstances of the 2025–26 academic year.9
Earlier in the year, the regulator said it was reviewing more than 30 applications for additional private schools.8 GEMS, meanwhile, maintained a substantial UAE expansion programme even while reporting softer registrations during the most uncertain part of the year.4
None of this guarantees that every proposed school will succeed, nor does it eliminate the potential effect of prolonged regional uncertainty. It does, however, provide an important counterweight to the disruption narrative: capital deployment and capacity growth have continued.
The GCC cannot be treated as one market
Perhaps the biggest analytical mistake would be to talk about a single “GCC impact”. The six GCC economies have different exposures, infrastructure, fiscal positions, expatriate populations and dependence on individual trade routes.
The Strait of Hormuz illustrates the difference. The International Energy Agency estimates that an average of 20 million barrels per day of crude oil and oil products passed through the Strait in 2025, equivalent to around a quarter of global seaborne oil trade. Saudi Arabia and the UAE have some alternative export infrastructure, while Qatar, Kuwait and Bahrain are considerably more dependent on the Strait for hydrocarbon exports.10
The economic consequences therefore differ by country. The IMF's July assessment of Saudi Arabia described an economy that had shown resilience, supported partly by diversified oil and logistics infrastructure, while also noting disruption to trade, weaker non-oil activity and lower confidence.11 Its assessment of the UAE similarly highlighted strong buffers and institutional preparedness while acknowledging pressure on areas including tourism, transportation, trade and real estate.12
Qatar experienced nationwide remote learning before education and other public services progressively returned to normal. By late September, maritime conditions remained volatile and energy movements through the region were still being affected.13
For international-school strategy, country-level analysis therefore matters more than a generic GCC risk assumption.
What could this mean for operators?
The clearest lesson so far may be operational rather than financial. Schools need to be able to maintain learning, communicate confidently with families, manage staff, respond to travel disruption and continue operating when normal assumptions no longer apply.
Families buying premium international education are not purchasing academic provision alone; they are also purchasing continuity and confidence. That potentially makes resilience increasingly relevant to brand reputation, particularly for groups operating across several markets.
Operators with established systems, strong balance sheets, multi-school networks and mature crisis-management processes may have advantages during periods of disruption that are not immediately visible in a traditional school P&L. The same may apply to staff retention and recruitment. Current evidence from major UAE operators does not indicate wholesale difficulty retaining international teachers: Taaleem reported conflict-related attrition of about 1% of its workforce during the summer and said its recruitment cycle remained broadly on track.7
Recruitment sentiment nevertheless deserves continued monitoring if uncertainty becomes prolonged, particularly where schools depend on large annual inflows of internationally recruited staff.
And what could this mean for investors?
Here, the evidence is less conclusive. There is not currently enough evidence to say that education investors have materially withdrawn from the GCC or systematically changed their preferred investment structures because of the conflict.
There is, however, a reasonable question around how risk is allocated between greenfield development and existing operating assets. A new school typically requires land, development capital, construction, licensing, recruitment, marketing and a multi-year enrolment ramp. An existing school may already provide a licensed campus, teaching staff, enrolled students, operating cash flow and an established position within its community.
During periods of elevated uncertainty, those characteristics could make operating schools relatively attractive to some investors. But this should currently be treated as a hypothesis to test, not a market conclusion. K12 would want to see stronger evidence through transactions, financing structures, acquisition activity and investor mandates before arguing that GCC capital is materially shifting from greenfield development towards brownfield or operating-school opportunities.
What the evidence does not tell us
At this point, K12 would be cautious about drawing broad conclusions from a still-moving situation. There is not sufficient evidence to conclude that long-term international-school demand across the GCC has materially weakened, that there has been a sustained departure of expatriate families from the region, or that investors are retreating from GCC education.
There is equally little basis for treating Dubai, Abu Dhabi, Riyadh, Doha, Kuwait City, Manama and Muscat as having identical exposure. What can be said with greater confidence is narrower: the conflict has exposed some of the dependencies beneath the GCC international-school growth model, including international mobility, confidence, aviation connectivity, regulatory flexibility, teaching-staff mobility, business continuity and predictable development conditions.
K12 assessment: resilience, but with assumptions being tested
The evidence available at the end of September suggests that the GCC international-school market has so far shown considerable resilience rather than structural deterioration. Education has experienced genuine disruption, some families temporarily left, relocations were postponed, examination systems required exceptional measures and regulators intervened. Parts of the wider Gulf economy have also been affected by trade, transport and energy disruption.
At the same time, families have returned, enrolment pipelines have recovered, major operators continue to recruit and expand, and significant new school capacity is entering markets including Dubai. The conflict has not, on the evidence currently available, invalidated the GCC international-school growth thesis. It has made the assumptions behind that thesis more visible.
For operators and investors, the questions are consequently becoming more precise:
Those are questions worth examining regardless of how the geopolitical situation ultimately develops.
What K12 will be watching
The next evidence will matter more than the headlines. K12 will be watching international relocation and admissions patterns for the 2026–27 academic year; student retention across major operators; teacher recruitment and turnover; new-school approvals and opening schedules; changes in greenfield development activity; education M&A and operating-school transactions; financing and insurance conditions; and any evidence that investors are changing how they price or structure GCC school opportunities.
Some of these indicators may strengthen the resilience argument, while others may begin to reveal effects that are not yet visible.
That is the signal worth watching.