Construction of the new campus of Doha College in Abu Hamour will start in the second half of this year. This was disclosed by Mark Leppard, the principal of Doha College. Leppard said that the new campus at West Bay, which has around 450 students, is fully operational from last September after it got the permission from the Supreme Education Council (SEC) in April-May. He said: “It is a primary school with 36 classrooms and 50 staff members. It runs from pre-school to year 6. Once the students complete Year 6, there will be a smooth transition to the secondary schools in Al Waab or Abu Hamour. By this September, the strength of the school will go up to 600.” The new campus in Abu Hamour will be operational from 2016, he said. “We are in the final stage of the first part of the planning which will be finalised by mid-February. The second stage of detailed designing including electrical works and other aspects will be completed by the middle of this year and we will be able to start the construction from the last quarter of this year.” The Abu Hamour campus will be located on a 61,000 sq m site and will accommodate more than 2,000 pupils. The new campus will be co-educational, and will follow the British curriculum providing the students world-class education from reception to A-Levels. The design has already been created by leading British architects Jestico & Whiles and offers a modern and flexible learning environment more akin to universities than schools. He said that there will be additional expansion projects in the West Bay campus. “There will be a new swimming pool in the West Bay campus. Last September, we did not go for full capacity in the campus. We kept some classes deliberately empty for some strategic reasons. From next September, we will be full. There will be a total of around 1,900 students in both the campuses by next year.” As for the present campus in Al Waab, the official said that the school had not yet decided on vacating it once the new campus is ready. He commented “According to the emerging situation, we might even retain the present locations. With FIFA 2022, there will be more people coming to the country and we may have to operate all the campuses as there will be more students to join us.” He said academically the school was doing very well and got very good results in the board examinations. “Around 45-50% of the graduates go to study in the UK universities because of the curriculum. Another 10-15% students get admitted in universities in Qatar and others go to the US or other universities across the globe.” http://www.gulf-times.com/qatar/178/details/377754/work-on-doha-college%E2%80%99s-new-campus-set-to-start

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