Amid conflicting reports about impending inspection raids on private and international schools across the Kingdom, several heads of schools have made a clarion call to the concerned authorities to come out with a clear-cut answer to remove the prevailing confused state of affairs. They noted that the lack of coordination among the concerned authorities and absence of specific guidelines have contributed to this state of confusion encompassing all relevant parties such as management, teachers, students, parents, and transporters at a time when many schools are struggling to meet the strict requirements and set of conditions to run their institutions. “We are scared of the latest announcement by the Ministry of Labor spokesman that private and international schools will not be exempted from the ongoing raids. This is contrary to what we came to know from the Ministry of Education (MoE) that the schools have time to correct the status of their staffers until Jan. 6,” said Dr. Padma Hariharan, Director & Head of Novel International Group of Institutions. Speaking to Saudi Gazette, she said that her school had received intimation from MoE officials that the deadline to transfer status of teachers, who have passed the qualifying test conducted by MoE and eventually received an eligibility certificate to work, is the end of the first semester of the current academic year. “Those teachers, who are not willing to transfer their sponsorship, do not have the right to work with their respective schools from Jan. 6 when the next semester begins,” she said quoting the ministry instruction. However, Syed Masood Ahmed, Principal of International Indian School-Jeddah, told Saudi Gazette that they did not receive any intimation from the ministry in this regard. He said the school authorities have submitted files of all dependent teachers, with regard to transfer of their sponsorship to school, to MoE and the ministry is now processing them. “Our teachers are little worried about raids. The MoE has assured us that if anyone comes for an inspection, they are to be informed about it, and there won’t be any problems,” he said, adding that some daughters are also included in the list of the dependents. Prof. M. Abdul Ali, Principal of Al-Noor International School, said the school has almost completed correcting status of teachers and drivers. “Now, we are in the process of transferring ownership of private vans to the school,” he said while welcoming the move of authorities to allow sufficient number of teacher visas to address the crisis. On her part, Sreedevi Menon, Asst. Director of Programs, Peevees Group of Schools-Saudi Arabia and Principal of New Al-Wurood International School, said schools under her group have almost completed the sponsorship transfer process. She called for issuing specific guidelines with regard to the deadline of the status correction from the concerned authorities. The schools’ authorities noted that the new guidelines cost them SR8,000-SR10,000 per year to meet the expenses for a teacher other than salaries and allowances. “Schools are not in a position to hike fees in the middle of the academic year in order to meet the expenses. We are also wary of not doing anything that affects the quality of education,” Padma added.
Posted on: Fri, 08 Nov 2013 14:39:55 +0000
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