DAMMAM, 26 October 2005 — With almost six months having passed since the new management committee of the International Indian School, Dammam (IISD) took over, they have a mixed bag of achievements to show. However, the issue which is causing great distress to parents is the new building.
As per the contract with the builder, the school should have received the building by now. But this was not to be and the school is losing almost one million riyals due to the delay as they have to renew the contracts for their various villas and the KG building. It should be noted that the contract has a penalty clause where the contractor shall pay SR 10,000 per day of delay.
The managing committee has dealt with this issue very casually and apart from the couple of notices issued by the school lawyer a few months back, no serious efforts are being made to ensure that the penalty is collected.
For every month delayed, the school is entitled for SR 300,000. When the committee Chairman Abdullah Manjeri was contacted, he said they had been following the situation very closely and there had been good progress in the recent past.
However, Manjeri was noncommittal on the issue of penalty nor when the children can move to the new premises.
Another issue causing agony is the salary increment. Whilst the long-awaited gesture provides a flat raise of 5% for the teachers, three people including the accountant and the librarian have received greater benefits and now it is alleged that the accountant’s annual package may be exceeding that of the headmistresses and even the vice-principal.
The school transportation services continue to suffer losses. The post of principal seems to be jinxed. The last committee blatantly refused to appoint a selected candidate and pressed for a second interview which was ultimately done by the current committee. The selected candidate is the current acting principal of Jeddah school. It is learned that since the newly appointed principal in Jeddah was terminated, now the school cannot relieve the acting principal.
On the positive front, the new committee managed to reduce the rent of the KG section by about SR100,000 and allotted the long pending janitorial contract. As per the chairman, the new school building will provide for lockers in the classes for small children so that they do not have to carry books daily.