RIYADH, 17 December 2005 — Now it is the turn of the teachers to play truant.
Bitten by the stock market bug, Saudi government schoolteachers have fallen in line with government employees to make a beeline to banks where they monitor the movement of shares and invest in stocks in hopes of making a fast buck.
While they sometimes emerge as winners on the stock market, the losers are the students waiting in the classrooms with no one to teach them.
Teachers of some government schools, as well as their principals and other employees, have appealed to the Capital Market Authority to shift the timings of the stock market operations from morning to afternoon, which they suggest could be extended to 8 p.m. This would spare school children the problem of sitting in a chaotic classroom without their teacher.
Currently, the stock market functions from 10 a.m. to noon and from 4:30 p.m. to 6 p.m. Education officials claim that a simple switch in the timings is all that is needed to inject discipline back into the classroom.
Asked why there is such a rush to the stock market, teacher Rashid Al-Khatran told Arab News that many of his colleagues in the profession have made a fortune on the stock market by dealing in shares.
“They want to become millionaires by hitting the fast track of the stock market. Hence there is this regular attendance in the Tadawul rooms and absenteeism in the classrooms.”
Though the teachers deny the phenomenon of absenteeism from schools, it is an open secret that stock hunters from the portals of education have made visits to Tadawul trading rooms part of their daily routines.
A government school principal indirectly admitted to the problem when he said that the solution would be to add afternoon trading as part of an extended session.
“It has come to a point where teachers discuss share prices during breaks instead of thinking about the next class that they have to teach, or about the school’s educational problems,” said the principal.
As it is, Saudi schools are on the mat for their below-average performance. The problem has been compounded by this stock-trading phenomenon.
According to stockbroker Saeed Aseeri, the stock market boom has lured many teachers into taking the plunge with their meager salaries, which they invest wholesale into shares and mutual funds. Quite often they return from the Tadawul room with an air of triumph.
“Instead of concentrating on his students,” said Aseeri, “he will be dreaming about the luxuries that his new-found wealth can buy.”
Another investor, Saud Al-Shahrani, said that this dream of making it big in the stock market was his motive for applying for a bank loan so that he could further invest in the share business and live happily ever after.
But for the students and their parents, it’s a new source of worry.
