JEDDAH: Azza Al-Thaqafi, a 32-year-old Saudi woman and mother of two, is employed as a teacher 40 km away from Taif. She goes to school every day, receives her full salary, but does not teach a single class.
Concerned her income might be unlawful, Azza contacted the Grand Mufti of Saudi Arabia Sheikh Abdulaziz bin Abdullah Al-Asheikh, who told her that her salary, according to Shariah, is halal as she is not responsible for her situation.
According to her husband Tariq, Azza was initially employed at a school some 60 km from her home and that she used to commute in three cars to get to work.
“She used to go there everyday just to have a cup of tea,” he said.
“The Ministry of Education closed the school down because of a shortage of students and my wife was then transferred to the school she is presently with,” Tariq added.
“The school could not give her classes to teach because she came at the end of the semester. They’ve promised her that she would get classes to teach at the start of the new semester,” he said.
Teachers are usually assigned 24 classes to teach per week. The teacher who Azza will share classes with teaches 12 classes — once the classes are shared out, Azza and the other teacher will have six classes each.
“This will have a negative effect on the teacher. Teaching to us is not about the salary, it is about self-confidence and the need to send out a message,” said the husband, adding that his wife’s skills are not being capitalized on.
“She could teach other subjects, least she would then feel she is being useful.” The situation is different in other parts of the Kingdom. Safa, an elementary schoolteacher in the Makkah region, said she and other teachers pool cash to employ a part-time admin worker to help them during peak times of the academic year.
The part-time worker helps them with administration work such as printing exam sheets, supervising activity classes and invigilating examinations. Safa and her colleagues each teach 34 classes each week.
Fahd Al-Tayash, general supervisor of the Department of Educational Information at the Ministry of Education, said there is no problem with the way teachers are distributed to schools in the Kingdom.
He said that the unfair distribution of work “is because of a lack of organization at regional education departments and that this is not a widespread problem.”
“We have more than 30,000 schools and it is normal for there to be some imbalance in the same way there is imbalance in other government schools and even private companies.
“This problem exists in girls’ schools and not in boys’ schools,” Al-Tayash added.
