Private schools in the Eastern Province have won the first round of a legal battle with the Ministry of Education on the nationalization of the teaching staff.

The Administrative Court in Dammam recently decreed that the ministry should suspend punitive steps against schools that failed to comply with the ministry’s orders on Saudization.

A number of private schools in the province petitioned three months ago to the Administrative Court against the fourth paragraph of a circular issued by the provincial director-general of education imposing penal measures, such as the closure of schools that failed to fulfill conditions governing the Saudization of the teaching staff.

The conditions included depositing half of the salary of all Saudi teachers in the Human Resources Development Fund (HRDF). School managements are also required to sign an agreement for a “unified contract of employment approved by the ministry” with their Saudi teachers.

The ministry’s order is based on an earlier Royal Decree, which made it mandatory for private schools to pay a minimum salary of SR5,600 to each Saudi male and female teacher. However, the schools need to contribute only half of the amount for each teacher, while the other half will be met by the HRDF.

The First Circle of the Administrative Court ruled that the penal measures mentioned in the fourth paragraph of the circular should be suspended.

The gist of the fourth paragraph of the ministry’s order, according to Khaled Al-Shamri, representative of the private schools in the province, is that all private schools that fail to implement the ministry’s order will be penalized in phases, beginning with a written warning from the ministry. The next phase will be suspension of registration and transfer of students to such schools, followed by a fine of SR5,000 for each Saudi teacher. The school’s file in the Ministry of Labor will be closed and finally, the school will be closed at the end of the academic year and the closure will last until the school rectifies its violations, Al-Shamri said in a statement reported by a local daily.

The court also made it clear that its decision was binding on the ministry. According to a clarification issued by the court following the Ministry of Education’s objection to the court’s initial ruling, the ministry’s branches should stop implementing the penal steps until the court pronounces its final decision in the case.

The schools demanded that a higher percentage of the salary to be shouldered by the HRDF instead of the present 50 percent.

Saeed Al-Qahtani, a member of the Eastern Province Chamber of Commerce and Industry, feared that the total loss of private schools in the Kingdom will reach SR1 billion due to a slump in the number of students enrolled in private schools. He said another major problem facing schools is the phenomenon of students leaving with the remaining school tuition fees pending.