← Back to homeÉcole Internationale Française de Sharjah
Sharjah, UAE · est. 1974 · Private
Illustration · Sharjah
École Internationale Française de Sharjah has run since 1974 and was the first French school in the Emirates. It holds conventionné status in the AEFE network and is homologated by the French education ministry; the Sharjah private education authority places it in the "Very good" category. The main thing a parent should know is that the school is currently growing upwards and has no full cycle. It opened its sixth year in September 2024 and its seventh in September 2025; admissions for 2026-2027 are open from Petite Section to the ninth year (4ème), and the school is only now setting out to rebuild a full collège and lycée - the change of name and status in September 2023 was made for exactly that. Teaching is in French and the language policy starts in the kindergarten: French as the language of schooling, Arabic as the host country's language and a third language after that. In the primary school, from CP to CM2, English is not a separate lesson but is taught through subjects on the EMILE model within AEFE's PARLE programme - three hours a week in cycle 2 and four in cycle 3.
Key facts
Tuition
≈ $7 488–11 164 a year
27 500–41 000 AED
Programmes
French programme
Languages of instruction
French
Languages taught
English, Arabic
Registration fee
≈ $272
1 000 AED
About the fees The annual fee by class (rates in force from 1 September 2025): PS 27,500 dirhams, MS and GS 28,000, CP 31,000, CE1 and CE2 33,500, CM1 and CM2 33,500, 6ème and 5ème 41,000, 4ème 41,000 - that class opens in September 2026. The enrolment and re-enrolment fees are 1,000 dirhams each; this is a place-reservation charge and it is credited against the first-term fee. Applications are accepted online only, through the Eduka platform.
Admissions Admission runs in six steps and online only, through the Eduka platform: the application and creation of the child's file, acknowledgement of the file, review of the file with the teaching team, an offer of a place, payment of the place-reservation fee and final admission confirmed by email. For 2026-2027 admissions are open from Petite Section to 4ème.
Stages and year groups Grades PS (age 3) - 4ème. The kindergarten runs three years - Petite, Moyenne and Grande Section - and takes children from the age of three. Then come the primary school CP-CM2 and a collège the school is opening one year at a time: 6ème from September 2024, 5ème from September 2025 and 4ème from September 2026. The school has no full collège or lycée yet, and says plainly that it intends to build them.
Address Halwan Suburb, Al Abar Area, P.O. Box 28524
Accreditations and programmes verified against official registries
AEFE · accreditationschool is in an official registryconfirmed by a school document, by membership or by taking part in a networkclaimed by the school, no confirmation, not counted in the scoreGuide to all organisations → What stands behind each entry
AEFEAgency for French Education Abroad
It runs the network of French schools worldwide, while the accreditation itself, the homologation, is granted by the French education ministry and inspected by French state inspectors. A leaver from a homologated school moves into a school in France without an entrance examination. Homologation is granted stage by stage, so it sometimes covers only part of the year groups.
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 →French programme
The state programme of France. A school is homologated by the French ministry of education, and a leaver may move into a school in France without entrance tests. Homologation is granted stage by stage, so it sometimes covers only part of the year groups.
What this means for this school. Which year groups of this school are covered by homologation - only the primary ones, or all the way to the final year - is not stated here. The difference matters: it decides whether the school takes a child through to the French baccalaureate or hands them on to another school halfway.
Exams and destinations from the school's official website
The school publishes nothing about where its leavers go: no share going on to university, no exam results, no list of universities.
Facilities
The school does not describe its premises on its website.
Teaching staff
There is no data for this section yet.
Safety and wellbeing from the school's official website
The school says nothing on its website about security, medical care or pupil support.
Reviews
No reviews yet. The community rating counts towards the score once a school has five verified reviews - until then we do not show a zero, so as not to mislead.
Criteria breakdown criterion weight in brackets
Academics and programmes (16%)72 Community rating (16%)no dataparent reviews are needed: the criterion switches on at the fifth verified one Exams and destinations (12%) scored on disclosed data55 Safety and wellbeing (12%) scored on disclosed data55 Accreditation and verifiability (10%)85 Teaching staff (10%) scored on disclosed data55 Facilities (10%) scored on disclosed data55 Clubs and activities (8%) scored on disclosed data67 "Scored on disclosed data" stands where we count only what the school has written about itself on its own site: exams and destinations, safety and wellbeing, teaching staff, facilities, clubs and activities. A low score here means the school does not write about this, not that the school does not have it: a school with good security and a sparse site will score low. A school can fill in its profile, and the score will be counted again.
The score is counted from 8 of the 9 criteria.Only those with checkable data count: programmes and accreditations from official registers, the fee from a published price list. Where it says "scored on the median", the school has no data and the middle of the list is put in its place, so that a gap gives no advantage. Admissions, teaching staff and reviews come in as their data arrives.
The full methodology → Similar schools in the country