<p>@melbusefi: No you aren’t really stereotyping that much. Most expatriates (I can only speak for Oman and the UAE, but I’d expect this to be common throughout the Gulf) tend to put their children in schools that follow the educational systems of their home country. There are many reasons for this. Partly it’s because the language of instruction tends to be Arabic in most local schools and most expatriates (particularly children) aren’t very familiar with Arabic. Furthermore, there’s always an element of uncertainty involved in being an expatriate and with nationalization (Omanisation, or Emiratisation of the workforce) in the ascendancy, they don’t really expect their children to work in the UAE. (at least not right away). Also, most expatriates’ children aim to study in universities either in their home countries or abroad, so a High School that follows for example, an Indian curriculum would naturally be more favoured.</p>
<p>I’d say it isn’t really because of the “Muslim” nature of these countries (India’s got the largest Muslim population outside Indonesia), but more due to the fact that most of these countries have immense expatriate populations. There’s simply no room in the national education system for expatriates, plus the national educational system’s not really that great, so there’s no real incentive for people to put their students in the system when there are so many good alternatives.</p>
<p>Re: communities, well this varies from place to place; generally you’re right, expatriates tend to coalace together, partly due to the general scarcity of nationals!</p>