The Ministry of Education has started field inspections to ensure that private schools pay Saudi teachers the higher salary ordered by the government.
The government ordered last year that Saudi teachers in private schools should be paid a minimum salary of SR 5,600 effective from the date of joining of the teacher in that school.
The new order came into force in September this year and is expected to benefit 39,000 Saudi teachers.
The Human Resources Development Fund (HRDF) will provide a 50 percent subsidy of the Saudi teachers’ salary.
“Deputy Education Minister Khaled Al-Sabti sent Wednesday a circular to all education administrations across the country to ensure that all private schools sign an agreement with the Human Resources Development Fund (HRDF) to receive the subsidy for the Saudi teachers working with them,” the ministry’s spokesman, Muhammad Al-Dekhaini, said in a statement to the Saudi Press Agency yesterday.
Al-Sabti also ordered the setting up of teams to visit private schools to see that the schools have registered the names of Saudi teachers with the HRDF, and that they have signed new contract agreements with teachers showing the salary and other conditions, the spokesman said. The schools should also take steps to register names of the Saudi teachers at the General Organization for Social Insurance (GOSI).
The ministry will take punitive measures against private schools that fail to comply with its orders. The penal actions will begin with a warning memo to implement the ministry’s orders within a month after they receive the memo. If any school fails to do so, all student admissions and transfers to that school will be stopped for the year. Subsequently, if the school does not implement the ministry’s orders in two weeks, it will be fined SR 5,000 for each Saudi teacher in the school, the spokesman said. The directorate will also recommend to the ministry that it suspend the school’s operation at the end of the semester. If the school continues to disobey the ministry’s orders, it will be asked to stop all its activities at the end of the year.
The ministry has authorized all directors of school directorates to punish any school that signs the stipulated agreement with the teachers but does not pay the salary regularly and does not register teachers’ names with the GOSI and the HRDF.
Al-Dekhaini said the ministry issued the latest orders with the aim of allaying the fears of private school teachers about some schools not being serious about paying the higher salary.
He also urged the teachers to report to their respective directorates of education if their school managements did not sign the agreement or register their names with the HRDF and GOSI within a month from now.
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