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Press
Tuesday 30 June 2009 (07 Rajab 1430)
Hopeless private schools
Rakan Al-Habib I Al-Watan
HOW will you measure your loss when you discover that the private school
where you registered your son or daughter is no different from government
schools? We have been talking so much about the curriculum in government
schools that we have forgotten about standards of education in private schools.
The loss is not in the amount of money paid, but in the years wasted in
learning things that could have been taught in government schools. Private
schools should teach modern science. I have learned that the fees the private
schools charge range from SR15,000 to SR20,000 a year - or at least this is the
case in some of them. I did a survey on who benefited from private schools and
discovered that most parents do not get what they pay for.
I think this is enough to warrant a close look at private schools, if not
by the Education Ministry then by the parents of those who study in them. In
the past, parents put their children in private schools in order to avoid the
poor standards of government schools. Nowadays, they find private schools to be
the best way to score high marks and so register their sons and daughters
there. The subjects taught in private schools, such as computer education and
foreign languages, are only glistening names.
The Education Ministry has played an important part in weakening the
private education sector by forcing these schools to employ Saudis, a move that
has damaged the quality of education offered there. It also led to teachers
with experience of 15 years or more to leave their jobs and be replaced with
newly graduated and inexperienced Saudi teachers.
No one is against Saudization, but this is not the way. The decision was
implemented without prior study. The schools did not hire experienced Saudi
teachers to replace experienced foreign teachers.
The decision has simply placed a large question mark on private education.
