“It has become well known that institutes and schools in the Kingdom claiming to teach English and other skills are purely a business, gaining students with empty promises, in turn taking the student’s money and leaving them the same way they entered: without the skills they were promised by the institute,” said Amal Badwulan, a Saudi mother of five.

“The director of the center blames the teacher who says that the children do not pay attention in class or study for tests when really the bottom line is that the institute has purchased a cheap English program from abroad, employed unqualified teachers and are just looking to make money.”

Other parents say they’ve been promised government-approved education certificates, job placement upon course completion and other perks, such as laptop computers and smart phones for signing up for a typical four-week or eight-week course. However, they say that they have recognized that all of these tactics are just marketing ploys to sell more courses.

“I wanted to enroll my 12-year-old daughter in a local institute and was told that upon completion of the eight-week course she would be eligible to go to the US or any European countries in the future to complete her higher-education studies because their certificate is internationally accredited,” said Rami Al-Johani, a father of three. But later he learned that the certificate wasn’t even recognized in the Kingdom.

The only school that responded to Arab News queries was ELS Learning Center in Jeddah whose director agreed that there are certainly many institutes around the Kingdom that focus on finances first and the student’s education second. “It’s wrong and that I don’t like it,” said the center’s Director Anthony Baker.

“I have had many arguments with schools and owners who do not understand that if you deliver a good quality education the money will come because once a parent sees that an institute or school cares about its students and takes the extra step to make sure they learn, those parents will tell others and keep bringing their kids back to the center,” he said.

Baker further said that he would also like to see the Kingdom’s English-language programs in its governmental and private schools become strong enough that institutes would not be needed.

According to Baker there are currently 36 different types of English-language institutes operating in the Kingdom.