JEDDAH, 1 November 2003 — The owner of a private school here has sold the school leaving the teachers, whom he owed four months’ salaries, high and dry. Alan Ahmad Al-Gharni, one of the teachers, told Al-Watan Arabic daily the school told teachers their salaries were delayed because of cash-flow problems. “We carried on teaching, but after four months we once again demanded our salaries, and they promised to pay us after final exams.
“But once exams were over, they came with another excuse, saying the parents hadn’t paid the fees,” he added. The teachers later discovered that the school was being sold.
“They said the new owner would take care of our salaries. But of course the new owner said the arrears were the responsibility of the previous owner,” Al-Gharni said. “The new owner had paid the old owner in cash because he said he needed to pay our salaries. But instead of paying us he disappeared,” he added.
Tallat Fairuzi, the director of private schools at Department of Education, told the newspaper the teachers were partly to blame for their plight. “They should have told us about the problem earlier,” he said. “But of course the previous owner should not have sold the school without fulfilling his financial obligations first.” But he added the department would attempt to track down the previous owner and either settle the matter amicably or through the civil court.
