JEDDAH, 6 December 2004 — Many female teachers are complaining of the unsocial hours of night schools. Students are also complaining because they are used to studying in the morning shift. Night schools proliferated recently because of the shortage of school buildings and the increase in the student population.
Besides working unsocial hours, female teachers are faced with the problem of compromising on their family responsibilities.
Um Abdulrahman, an elementary night school teacher, said, “Night teaching is difficult. We do not have enough time to teach children properly. In the morning shift, each class session is for 45 minutes while in the night shift, it is for 35 minutes and sometimes 30. This does not allow us enough time to teach a whole lesson in a session. The husbands of most teachers do not like the idea of their wives doing the night shift. Night teaching is a bad idea and the only solution is to build more schools.”
Another female teacher at a middle school said, “Teachers are not doing justice to their job because they do not have enough time to conduct classes. Students at the receiving end have to bear the brunt of it. There is a general feeling that night students are lazy. I do not blame them because lessons are explained to them in a touch-and-go manner because there is not enough time to teach them properly. The main problem we face in school is when classes are over. If a student stayed late, teachers would have to stay back with the student until the father showed up to pick her up. Sometimes we hear stupid excuses such as they overslept or simply forgot to pick up the girl.”
Um Badr, another night teacher, spoke about the case of a friend who got divorced because she refused to give up teaching at night.
Her husband was fed up that when he came home in the afternoon he had to wait for her to show up. He finally told her to choose between her job and family life. She chose not to give up her job.
“This is one of the many sad stories faced by female teachers doing night shifts. We are under a lot of pressure because we are leaving our husbands and children uncared for,” said Um Badr.
Reham A., another teacher, said, “Yes, there are disadvantages to night teaching. The only advantage is that I have enough time to sleep.”
But she thought the night school was a temporary phenomenon. Because many old school buildings had to be closed down due to the physical danger they posed to students and teachers, there had been a shortage of schools.
“Night school was the only option to solve the shortage. We as teachers should not complain too much because the morning shift has its own problems, too. We have to adapt to the night shift or face unemployment,” said Reham.
