Students often skip class to smoke shisha at coffee houses. Such shops provide a tempting environment to divert students from their studies and cultivate bad habits, according to a recent circular issued by the Education Administration in Jeddah.
“An agreement has been signed between the education administration and the Jeddah Municipality to modify the age of students who can visit the coffee shops in the morning hours to stop students under 18 from missing class,” Abdul Majeed Al-Ghamdi, media director of the administration in Jeddah, told Arab News on Saturday.
The ban applies to both boys and girls, Al-Ghamdi said.
“According to the agreement, the municipality will put notifications in front of coffee shops warning students under 18 they will not be allowed in,” Al-Ghamdi said.
The agreement was made after noticing an alarming rise in the number of absentees in schools, he said.
He said that the municipality would be strict in enforcing the ban.
A spokesman of the Jeddah Municipality Abdul Aziz Al-Nahari told Arab News that all coffee shops in the city have been issued a circular that students under 18 should be banned from entering coffee houses.
“We will ensure that the ban is enforced strictly because our goal is the welfare of our own children,” Al-Nahari said.
He added that coffee shops do not provide an environment conducive for healthy growth, cultivation of good behavior and personality development.
Meanwhile, another source at the municipality said a number of coffee houses have violated government regulations by secretly serving shisha.
Shisha cannot be served except in open coffee houses, with a campaign underway to ban it altogether, he said.
A number of schools’ administrations expressed their dismay at the tendency of students to skip class.
“Those students do not realize the value of education,” a principal said.
