The new school year has begun and the media have published reports saying that schools have made all necessary preparations and that everything is fine. We have been told that anything contradicting this will be challenged by education officials; of course if female officials were allowed to respond their answers would be hijacked by men.
However, after some investigations it became evident that what the papers were saying was not true. I will try here to mention some facts. I am not writing in my capacity as an employee of the education sector but because I have assumed the responsibility of writing and have been approached by many women who put their trust in me. They want to see certain problems discussed in my column in hopes of a solution.
I was among many who called for reform and for modernizing our educational curriculum. If there has been change, it is certainly very slow as far as girls’ education is concerned. A local paper reported that a group of prominent Saudi education experts would join other experts to develop and upgrade the curriculum in an Arab state. I asked myself if it wouldn’t have been more beneficial if the efforts of those Saudi experts had been made for education in our country.
This year the summer vacation was extended by a week for students but the extension did not apply to school employees. It was hoped that the extra week would be used to hold training sessions and prepare for the new academic year. I will confine my comments to girls’ education, specifically in my hometown, Madinah, although I imagine the situation is much the same all over the country.
The desired benefit of extending the holiday was for several reasons far less than expected. Most of the supervisors were on vacation while some teachers were entitled to additional leave having worked additional hours during examinations. Usually, retirement applications are submitted at least three, and even six, months earlier. This also applies to applications for the movements of staff from one place to another. Retirement applications are usually approved even before replacements are found. Such practices further increase the state of confusion in schools at the beginning of the new year. The delay in moving teachers further aggravates the problem with teachers unable to settle down to get on with their jobs. The frequent changing of teachers is not in the interest of the students. This is a very common phenomenon in girls’ schools where teachers are absent for several reasons, notably maternal as well as others relating to the family. To all these can be added the shortage of women teachers and their random assignments, especially in elementary schools where no one seems to be in the right place.
If classes remain closed for the holiday, the education departments all over the Kingdom are supposed to be open year-round. They should have long ago prepared for a new academic year, laying down the necessary plans and attending to related details. There is also the problem of crowded classrooms especially in the first and second years of elementary school. In some cases as many as 50 girls are crowded into one room with the numbers in excess of 40 in some intermediate and secondary schools.
What really motivated me to write this article is the inability of many non-Saudi girls to find places in public schools which are required by law to take in a fixed number of non-Saudis. Although the law stipulates that priority is for citizens, even Saudi girls sometimes do not find places in public schools. Many non-Saudis and Saudis as well cannot afford to send their children to private schools. Private schools have become a luxury, providing a source for boasts for many including both Saudis and expatriates. I think the least we can do for the people who came to this country to work is give them a chance to educate their children just as we provide them with medical care. Imagine that at one secondary school the head could not accept any of the 70 non-Saudi applicants because there was no space. The same problem faces children of families who have lived among us for a long time and whose parents were born in this country. These families can only be differentiated from Saudis by the identity papers they carry. The solution lies in increasing the number of classes, attaching new extensions to existing ones, renting more buildings and increasing the number of teachers. At least we could help them earn a certificate from our public schools. They are our brothers and sisters and our religion makes education and learning compulsory for every Muslim, male and female.
