Sharjah, UAE · est. 2013 · PrivateAlitqan American School opened in Sharjah in 2013 in the Al Azra district and teaches an American programme from kindergarten to high school. Its students come from more than ten countries, it has more than 76 teachers, more than 20 clubs and sports activities, and more than fifty of its leavers have been accepted by universities abroad. Its motto is a plain one - "Empower learners to become Innovators" - and on its site it describes itself as a place "where children love to learn". The Sharjah Private Education Authority rates the school "Good", and it holds ISO 9001 and ISO 21001 certificates. The annual fee runs from 12,075 dirhams in the kindergarten to 21,688 in the senior grades - inexpensive for a private school in the UAE - and books, uniform and the bus are charged on top.
Key facts
Accreditations and programmes verified against official registries
Cognia · accreditationCollege Board · authorised programmeWhat stands behind each entry
The widest-reaching American accreditation: some forty thousand schools in over a hundred countries. It accredits both individual schools and whole school systems. It also sells a paid membership with no inspection behind it, and that membership is often passed off as accreditation.
What the badge means for this school. The school has been through this organisation's accreditation. It was judged as a whole: governance, safeguarding, staff, premises, teaching. The entry stands in the organisation's public register - anyone can check it.
Register to check for yourself, and the full guide →An American organisation that allows a school to put the letters AP on a pupil's transcript. The permission is granted course by course and tied to a particular teacher, it has to be renewed every year, and College Board reads the course syllabus before granting it.
What the badge means for this school. The school is allowed to run advanced AP courses - not the school as a whole, but one by one: by subject and by teacher. Governance, safeguarding and the primary years are not part of that check. Which subjects are actually approved is visible in the ledger. The entry stands in the organisation's public register - anyone can check it. Authorisation here runs a year at a time: the register lists the school for the 2025-2026 school year.
Register to check for yourself, and the full guide →Advanced Placement: American advanced courses for the senior years. The exam for a course is set and marked by the College Board, not by the school. A good result is counted by American universities as a first-year course already passed, which saves a student time and money.
What this means for this school. A school does not get to call a course AP automatically: the College Board reads the course syllabus and approves it separately for every subject and every teacher, and the permission has to be renewed each year. Every approved school in the world is listed in the open AP Course Ledger, and this school's entry there stands as a line in the accreditation block above. How many courses a school is approved for, and in which subjects, the ledger does not show in its general listing. AP has no leaving certificate of its own: it sits on top of the school's main programme rather than being a separate system.