JEDDAH: As boys and girls around Saudi Arabia wake early, grab their bags and head off to school, seven-year-old Palestinian Duhdi Mohammed Taha remains at his home.
He doesn’t ditch class so he can play or watch cartoons; the problem is he’s the child of low-income expatriate parents and there is no space for him at government schools.
Duhdi’s father, Mohammed, a taxi driver, says children of foreign parents have scant chance of getting the few seats available to them in government schools unless the parents have good social or bureaucratic connections (known locally as “wasta”).
“When I initially wanted to register my son in a public school two weeks prior to the start of classes, I was told by school officials that I was coming in to register him too early,” said Mohammed. “When I asked them why, they said that Saudi nationals had priority and explained that my only chance would be leftover spaces.”
The law in Saudi Arabia governing education states that children of foreign parents must enroll in Saudi private schools or international schools.
However, in practice, any available seats of a school after Saudi pupils enroll can be claimed by non-native pupils.
Mohammed said he was aware that expatriate children should go to private or international schools but that his salary as a taxi driver made them out of his financial reach.
“I don’t think it is fair that my son should miss out on a year of his education simply because of family financial strains, but at this point I have no other choice,” he said. “So far I have been promised by Education Ministry officials that they have contacted the principals of numerous schools and as soon as a vacancy was found I would be contacted. However, here we are entering the second week of school with Haj vacation coming up.”
A few days after Mohammed expressed his concern over his son’s inability to get enrolled, he received a call from the ministry. An official there told him that his son could enroll in a school in south Jeddah.
But what initially seemed like a solution to his problem turned out to be a dead end.
Only a week after his son started classes, the principal informed Mohammed that his son would have to find another school because there was no room for him there.
“I really don’t know what to do,” he said.
In a related issue, Arab News has learned that an Egyptian professor in a well-known university in Riyadh met with a similar dilemma when he wanted to enroll his two daughters in a Qur’an memorization school.
According to an anonymous source, the professor was told the program was for Saudi students only and that it was prohibited for him to enroll his daughters because, “they are expats.”
