DAMMAM, 9 June 2003 — The premature closure of three schools managed by the International Schools Group in the aftermath of the Riyadh explosions and the fear of further terrorist activity has created a vacuum in expatriate education in the Eastern Province.
Parents are worried that, should these schools not re-open after the summer break, their children’s education will be uncertain.
Prior to the government’s liberalization policy, there were no more than a dozen expatriate schools in Dammam and Alkhobar. But five years ago, a government decision to license foreign schools in the country resulted in the mushrooming of expatriate schools all over the country. There are now more than 50 educational institutions for expatriates in the Eastern Province.
The liberalization policy led to commercialization of expat education in the region. In some respects, schools became a status symbol for the expat community. For example, Dhahran Academy, one of the schools prematurely closed in the wake of the terror, earned a reputation as a top-notch school. Children of top executives were admitted there and its annual fee was in excess of SR40,000. Community schools were looked down on, considered as schools of lower and middling status, irrespective of academic standards.
For the management of several private schools, it was a business proposition and nothing else. More emphasis was given to the social aspect and class category than to the academic side. However, in the maze of such commercialized institutions, there are still a few private schools whose academic excellence remains the top priority and which have not allowed themselves to become only a commercial proposition.
Humayun Muzaffar, director of the Asia International School in Alkhobar, believes that the commercialization of schools will destroy the academic excellence of the schools.
“It is a question of priorities for the management. And academic excellence has to be the top priority,” he said.
Asia School is affiliated to IGCSE (International General Certificate of Secondary Education) and has more than 600 students and 60 teachers. The teaching staff is a mixture of Asians, Arabs and Europeans, as is the student body. The school follows the British curriculum and French is taught as a compulsory subject from Grade 1 through Grade 7. The school runs classes from KG to Grade 11. Qamrunnisa, the principal of the school, says that the school focuses on the overall development of students’ personalities.
Muzaffar admitted that the International Indian School had very high standards in education but that many other schools were keen to make money rather than provide quality education. He said that after the closure of three schools many parents had approached him to start a summer school so that their children would be kept busy. The school is still considering the proposal.
No doubt if the three schools which closed recently were closed down permanently, then a void would be created and once again there would be a race to procure licenses to open new schools and fill the void. It is up to the Education Ministry to scrutinize applicants and issue licenses only to those who have academic achievement, not business, as their top priority.
