I Tutor the Children of Dubai’s Rich. One Paid Me $3K to Do His Homework.

• A 25-year-old private tutor told BI about his experiences working in the UAE.
• He said he had taught the children of some of Dubai’s richest people.
• One of his students paid him $3,000 to do homework, he said.

This essay as told is based on a conversation with a 25-year-old private tutor and university governor from Dubai. They were granted anonymity to speak freely about their experiences. This essay has been edited for length and clarity. The children’s names have been removed to protect their identities.

I moved to Dubai in the United Arab Emirates (UAE) in 2020 to work for an international tutoring agency.

Since then, I have taught children from some of Dubai’s most elite families – millionaires and billionaires who had made their money through oil investments, tech startups and other businesses.

One of the families I taught lived in one of the most expensive apartments in Dubai, complete with an art room, massage room, gym and a movie theater. It was spread over five floors and also had a private elevator and guard dogs at the door.

Families like these often had dozens of staff, including security guards, housekeepers, drivers, cooks, nannies and, of course, tutors.

The parents were often not there, but those I met were almost always friendly to me.

I mainly had contact with the nannies, who were available to the children.

They made me dinner and brought me drinks, and I almost felt like I was part of the family, like a big brother.

One of my youngest students had his own bespoke classroom in the family home – it was better equipped than anything you would see in a normal school.

After completing an arts and crafts class with him once, I said we needed to clean up the mess.

“Absolutely not,” he said. “I don’t pay you to clean. I pay her to clean,” pointing to the nanny.

Another child and I, who was about seven at the time, were studying birds in biology and he asked us to get him an owl to observe.

The next time I came home, an owl was perched on the kitchen counter.

His brother told another student to “don’t bother working” because “daddy would take care of it.” He then paid me $3,000 to do his homework for him.

But this was normal behavior in Dubai, as the children were used to extreme wealth.

Families would give me gifts

These kinds of financial “incentives” were by no means rare.

Sometimes parents would go to great lengths to start a bidding war against each other.

If they knew I would be at a client’s house at the time they wanted, they would offer to pay double, triple, or more to convince me to come to their house instead.

And every time I thought I had seen it all, the profession found new ways to surprise me.

One day, my car broke down and I was late for a class with one of my regular students. I explained to the mother why I was late and the next time I had a lesson with this child, she gave me $7,000 in cash to pay for the repairs.

The same family gave me a huge tip of over $20,000 at the end of the year.

I spent the summer sailing the Italian coast on a yacht

Last summer, I was hired to care for two brothers aged four and six. Their family had planned a trip on their private yacht and wanted to sail along the Italian coast for two months.

A few weeks after signing the contract, I found myself on a speedboat crossing the Mediterranean towards a ferry-sized superyacht.

As I joined my new employers on deck, the uniformed staff offered me champagne (even though I wasn’t allowed to drink while working), and I spent the next few months riding jet skis, paddle boarding, visiting wineries and eating expensive food.

This family was from Russia and there was a marked difference in the way they treated me, often wanting to keep me out of sight.

While they were partying on the upper floors, I was told to stay below deck.

They had hired me to be a sort of glorified babysitter for their children, playing with them and entertaining them while speaking English to them.

For the Russian elite, having someone who speaks English with a native accent is a great bragging point.

Perhaps one of the funniest moments was when we returned to their villa on the south coast of France. On either side of the front door were two stone busts depicting the face of the father.