Parents are criticizing the Education Ministry's decision allowing private and international schools to raise their fees by 10 percent annually. Parents fear the decision would increase their financial burden but school authorities claim the hike is essential to meet their growing expenses. Hamoud Al-Saqiran, spokesman for the Education Department in Jeddah, said private schools are not allowed to increase registration fees without the ministry's permission. "The ministry will take punitive action against schools that violate this rule and ask them to pay back the additional amount to students," he told Al-Madina Arabic daily. Mother of a schoolchild said: "I got admission for my daughter in an international school, which charged SR15,000 in annual fees, excluding charges of books. Every year it increased the fees and now it has reached SR18,500. This has forced me to shift her to a government school." Rania Rajab, director of Huda Al-Sham School, said ministry's decision restricting annual fees hike to 10 percent was an injustice to small schools that provide quality education and they find it hard to meet their expenses due to the small number of students. "How can they equate a school with 150 teachers and 700 students with a school with 10 teachers and 50 students?" she asked. Rajab urged the authorities to give the supervisor of private education the authority to approve fee increase in such schools in coordination with the school management. Mazen Zahr, director of Global International Schools, welcomed the ministry's decision to allow 10 percent annual increase in fees. "Expenditures for running a school would depend on the location, rent, qualitative educational programs and other services," he said. Zahr urged parents to think about the quality of education provided by schools to their children rather than the fees. "Tests conducted by the Education Department and other agencies have showed that the academic standard of students differs from one school to another." A Saudi parent, who requested anonymity, spoke about the difficulties he faced to get admission for his children in an international school after they returned from Britain. "I have noticed that most international schools lack necessary facilities. There are only three or five excellent schools and they charge hefty fees --SR40,000 or more. He said some schools charge SR3,000 for books and SR1,000 for uniform in violation of the ministry's regulations. Ilham Yateem, director of Dar Al-Huda School, said her school had applied for a fee hike when the Human Resource Development Fund stopped paying salaries of Saudi teachers. "The lowest salary in private schools is SR5,600 and the fund used to pay SR2,500. We will be forced to increase fees when the fund stops contributing to the salary of the Saudi staff," she told Al-Madina. Yateem said it was the right of schools charging SR20,000 or less to hike the fees by 10 percent. "I think the government has to take a decision on schools that charge more than SR25,000 as it constitutes a big burden on parents," she added.
