JEDDAH, 31 August 2006 — Expatriate parents have begun the difficult process of registering their children for school weeks before the start of the new season, which starts on Sept. 2 for private schools and Sept. 9 for state-run schools.
Finding places for more than 2.5 million non-Saudi children in government schools is not an easy job especially since government schools have strict quotas of how many non-Saudi children they can take — between three to five percent. Expatriates have to choose the more expensive option of sending their children to private schools.
Meanwhile, universities are exclusively available only for Saudis and hence expatriate children are forced to go abroad to pursue higher education. The difficult situation in the Kingdom has resulted in many foreigners, especially those with limited income, discontinuing their children’s education after high school.
Suleiman Al-Marzooki has been working in the Kingdom for more than 30 years and could be considered to be a middle-income person. “I had to stop my son’s and daughter’s education because they just couldn’t get a place at a Saudi university,” he said. For Al-Marzooki sending his children abroad was not an option because he could not afford it.
Suhail Al-Sorani, a Lebanese national working in the Saudi private sector, has just completed his paperwork to immigrate to Canada after living in the Kingdom for 12 years. He said he just could not continue the education of his children here because of the expensive fees in private schools. “Education is very costly here in the Kingdom compared with other countries such as Pakistan, Lebanon and India,” he said.
With 90 percent of expatriate children attending private schools, Arab News conducted an informal survey to get an overview of how much they charge. The cost of education at these schools begins at around SR3,000 and can reach up to SR25,000. Not to mention that it costs nearly SR1,000 for books and uniforms and SR3,000 a year for transportation.
Due to the high cost of education in these private schools, there are schools in Jeddah that take monthly payments from parents. Ashraf Al-Sebaie, an accountant at a private company, has two children studying in a private middle school and pays on a monthly basis. “It is a painful process. Each month when I get my salary the school fees takes out a huge chunk of money from my salary,” he said.
Al-Sebaie said that he would borrow money if he had to because if he fell behind one monthly payment, his children would be banned from studying until the payment is made.
With the increasing number of private schools because of the huge number of foreign workers, there are many Saudis who want to also enroll their children in these schools.
According to sources, Saudis must obtain permission from educational authorities as a condition before getting their children in international schools. In fact, many international schools have notices on their doors saying: “No admission for Saudis.”
