DAMMAM, 12 December 2003 — The Ministry of Education’s announcement that it will now strictly enforce segregation of male and female students in foreign schools has shocked school administrations and parents alike.
The rule on segregation, from which only embassy schools are exempt, has long been on the books but has not been enforced. Certain foreign schools as a result expanded their co-education because it was cost-effective and attractive to many Western nationals.
Diplomats are uneasy over the ministry’s instructions. Aramco schools and those in Jeddah like Jeddah Prep and Continental school will be affected. “It’s very scary,” said one Western diplomat in Jeddah. “Parents may decide to leave the country altogether if they can’t get the education they want for their children.”
But Elmar Jacobs, first secretary at German Embassy, said: “It is not a new regulation; the ministry has urged segregation in the past.”
“We have a very small German school in Riyadh,” he added, saying bigger schools would be able to comply more easily with the instructions.
Small privately-run schools in particular are greatly disturbed by the ministry’s announcement. Their concern is the cost of segregation. All of them agree that if segregation is strictly implemented, then dozens of schools in the Kingdom will have to close — they do not have the teachers or the resources.
Except for a few schools in Jeddah and Dammam, most have an enrollment of between 200 and 500 students. The schools say segregation will force them to set up two separate units for boys and girls and double up on resources and staff, which will be expensive.
In many foreign schools, the majority of teachers are housewives who are paid low salaries with no — or very limited — benefits.
Abdul Rahman Al-Hamdan, who owns a small school with an enrollment of 180 foreign students in Riyadh, said the segregation of sexes will be difficult to implement in schools with small numbers of students. This will result in heavy operational losses since additional classrooms, separate laboratories and separate libraries will have to be built.
“The increase in expenses will force some owners of small schools to close down,” said Hakim Shah, a Pakistani teacher. “Most embassy-run schools will probably not abide by the segregation order whereas a majority of privately-owned schools with substantial numbers of students will have to.”
Sources at Jeddah’s three mixed-nationality schools agreed that the new proposals need thorough examination in order to evaluate the possible ramifications. “If they are implemented,” said one, “it could mean huge capital expenses in constructing separate facilities, hiring new staff and in effect running two schools on the same site.”
Schools also fear that many Western parents will withdraw their children from local schools if segregation is implemented. In the Eastern Province, those parents have the option of sending their children to school in nearby Bahrain. There are so many foreign and Saudi students enrolled there already that Bahrain recently had to stop admitting Saudi students.
Some administrators are considering affiliation with their respective embassies, which would allow the schools to continue as they are at present. With as many as 40 or more nationalities represented in each major school, including Saudi nationals, there may well be policy and bureaucratic ramifications to this move that would in the end prove counterproductive.
Many school administrators and principals have urged the ministry to review the decision and allow the status quo to prevail. “This announcement has opened a Pandora’s box. One thing will lead to another. In the end it will be utter chaos,” said a British parent.
— Additional reporting by K.S. Ramkumar in Jeddah and M. Ghazanfar Ali Khan in Riyadh.
