MAKKAH, 22 March 2005 — Rocks rolling down a nearby mountain led Ajyad Elementary School’s being closed. The girls studying there were transferred to another school; their parents, however, wonder if one of the rocks may not have hit someone in the Education Department in the head. The department, to the parents’ surprise, provided only one bus to transport the 650 girls.
The girls were transferred to a school in the Al-Hijra area and switched to an afternoon shift. Now parents are complaining about road access problems, missing time from work in order to transport students, classroom overcrowding and an overcrowded bus.
“The decision to transfer our children to a smaller school was a bad one,” said parent Tariq Jamal. “They changed the time and now our daughters are studying in the afternoon shift, which will affect the quality of their education. The timing is very bad for us because we cannot have an hour break every day to take our children to school in the afternoon.”
The transportation issue in fact is the biggest problem.
“We were happy when officials at the Education Department in Makkah said that they would provide buses for us,” Jamal said. “We then saw only one bus. How can one bus transport 650 students?”
Transporting 650 girls on one bus certainly seems to be impossible, but some parents are saying cramming 20 classes into 13 rooms is equally impossible. “They told us first that they would move the children to a school nearby in Aziziya,” said parent Hassan Ahmad. “It did not happen. We were surprised when they moved our children to Al-Hijra which is far away from us. In the original school, there were 20 classrooms. In the new school, there are 13 classrooms. This means that there will be overcrowding in classes. I wish we could transfer the children to a bigger school where they would be able to learn.”
The Education Department acknowledges that there are problems but insists it is a temporary situation. After all, schools closing because of rockslides is itself somewhat unusual.
“The agreement was to transfer elementary students to Al-Aziziya,” said Dr. Abdul Aziz Al-Okala, general manager of Girls’ Education in Makkah. “Later, we learned that most of the girls have sisters in the middle school. The decision was the made to transfer the entire compound to Al-Hijra which has a compound for elementary and middle school.”
At least nobody really thinks you can get 650 girls on one bus. “As for the transportation, we have been able to provide only one bus until we sign a contract with a transportation company for more buses,” Al-Okala said. “All that we can do is ask people to be patient.”
