“I was surprised when my 11-year-old daughter told me that she was assigned to purchase carpets for the school mosque,” said Maha Al-Yakoub. “I called the school supervisor who told me that my daughter had complained about the hard floor when praying and so I asked her to buy carpets for the mosque. Of course, I bought new carpets as I wanted to make her look good in front of her teachers,” she added.

Popular school activities include competitions for the best and prettiest classrooms. “Each year, my daughter asks me money to buy posters and plans to decorate her classroom to win a prize.

I always think that getting a small plastic trophy at the end of the year is not worth all the money we put into decorating the class,” said Ghadeer Abdu.

“I don’t want to reject my daughter’s proposal because I don’t want her to look less than her classmate, something that pushes me to spend money on stuff that would be thrown away at the end of the year,” she added.

Qusai Ashraf’s 15-year-old son once asked him to buy an AC unit and a projector for his school. “I was constantly buying equipment for my son who was always being asked by his teachers to do so since they knew I worked in that field,” he said.

“However, what crossed the line was when they dared to ask him for a new AC and projector in return for full marks in math and chemistry… I immediately moved him to another school because schools should be imparting education and not easy grades,” he added.