JEDDAH — A number of Saudi women teachers working at schools in remote villages far away from their homes have told Okaz/Saudi Gazette of their difficulties working in such locations. They have to travel hundreds of kilometers to and from school daily and this makes them exhausted at the end of the day. This harrowing experience has forced some of these teachers to give up their teaching dreams. Fatal road accidents involving schoolteachers and students are another factor that puts a lot of teachers off. Makkah resident Huda Saleh is one of the teachers who work in a remote location. She travels nearly 210 km daily to her school located in a remote village in the Taif region. Huda leaves home early in the morning and comes back in the evening. It takes her three hours to travel each way. Huda is forced to leave her three children with their grandmother and housemaid throughout the day. Her children would wait for their mother for a long time near the front door and their impatience turns to delight when they spot her car outside the house. Another teacher, who preferred to be identified only as R.S., said that it was a dream come true when she got a teaching job after graduating in Arabic language. She was appointed in Tihama Radoum, a village in Asir province, but her father objected, saying the remote village was quite foreign to them and there were no relatives or friends living in the area. Her father, who worked in the military sector in Makkah, could accompany her to the workplace. Her mother had to take care of her younger siblings, who included little children. She said: “My father's objections were clear after accompanying me to school on the first day and realizing that it was very difficult for me to go to work and come back home daily because of the long distance.” Another young Saudi woman, who identified herself as D.A., has a different tale to tell. She was forced to take up a teaching job in a remote village outside Mahayil in Asir due to her family situation. She had to leave her two-month-old baby at home to join the school. The woman separated from her husband while she was pregnant. Therefore, she relied on her father to take her to school and back. However, now she faces a real crisis as her father is not in a position to accompany her. She is being forced to find accommodation with some women colleagues near the school and leave her girl behind at home. Almost all women teachers working in schools in rural areas are scared of the long arduous travel that sometimes can lead to accidents and tragedies. Reports about several fatal accidents involving women teachers regularly haunt them. The latest of these victims include Nahla Al-Jabiri, an English teacher who died in a horrific accident while she and her colleagues were on their way from Makkah to their school in a village east of Al-Laith. Many of the survivors sustained multiple injuries. Nahla got the job in Al-Laith after a 15-year wait. The mother-of-four could not get a transfer to one of the schools in Makkah for nearly eight years after joining the Al-Laith school. Another grisly accident claimed the lives of three women teachers and two girl students in Al-Kamel region, east of Makkah. All of them burned to death after their vehicle caught fire following a collision with another on an agricultural road in Al-Dawara village. Scores of teachers working in remote regions have died in accidents. Commenting on the issue, Salem Al-Tuwaireqi, who used to work as a counselor at the guidance and counseling division of the Education Department in Jeddah but has now retired, said several women teachers working in remote regions suffer from anxiety and other psychological problems. He added: “These teachers include even the newly appointed ones. They were diagnosed with mental problems after they received their posting.” According to Al-Tuwaireqi, these teachers used to hear about the hardship and suffering experienced by teachers who worked at remote schools. They are also scared of the possibility of accidents taking place while making the long journey to and from school. Other factors include reckless driving by their drivers and other motorists, the bad behavior of some drivers such as verbal abuse or attempts at sexual harassment, unexpected changes in weather, exhaustion and an inability to fulfill their responsibilities as wives and mothers. Al-Tuwaireqi said mental stability and relaxation is essential for women teachers to perform their duties, both at school and at home, in the best possible manner. He added: “To achieve this, there should be coordination between the ministries of education and civil service and the universities to give trainee teachers coaching in specializations required by the labor market. “There should also be safe and comfortable transport facilities arranged by either the government or qualified private companies.” He added that affordable and good accommodation should be made available near school premises in remote locations. Lawyer and legal consultant Ahmad Al-Maliki suggested the Ministry of Education should hand over responsibility for the appointment and transport of women teachers and administrative staff to the Civil Service Bureau. Accordingly, the bureau can find out the actual requirements of each and every region for teaching and administrative staffers and then make appointments from qualified candidates based on locality. He also stressed the need for making teachers aware of traffic safety rules and regulations. “There should be strict inspections of vehicles transporting teachers and students to ensure that they have fulfilled safety conditions set by the Ministry of Transport and are undergoing periodic inspections, in addition to ensuring the competence of drivers. “There should also be increased traffic police patrols along roads and highways during school-rush hours.” He said this would help officers to catch speeding vehicles, attend to accidents instantly, as well as prevent trucks using these roads during peak hours. Al-Maliki said other measures that could further alleviate the sufferings of women teachers in remote schools are reduced working hours, a three- or four-day work week and a late start of the school day. There should also be facilities to warn drivers about sudden weather changes on the routes between homes and schools. It is also ideal to arrange jobs for both women teachers and their male guardians in the same neighborhoods or nearby localities.
