Several Saudi teaching staff members have expressed their disappointment with new allowances and incentives to teachers falling in a selected category. These teachers were quoted by Al-Riyadh daily as saying that most of the teaching staff in Saudi universities will not meet the conditions governing the payment of new allowances. “A very small segment will benefit from it and the rest will remain empty-handed,” the paper quoted them as saying. New incentives to deserving Saudi teaching staff were endorsed by the Council of Ministers earlier this week. Several teachers who were approached by the Arabic daily said an increase in salary is much more effective than allowances for a select few. The government should have approved an across the board increase in the salary, they said. Additionally, they stressed the importance of reconsidering the condition which linked the payment of a 25 percent increase in salary to those who teach the maximum number of lectures shown in timetables of their faculties, saying that this is “unattainable if not impossible.” Others say that all Saudi staff members should be paid the long-awaited housing allowance rather than wait for years until proposed residential units are built for them. They also suggested the generalization of the rare specialties allowance so that it covers most of the specializations besides granting five percent for conducting research with the remainder being paid from the merit allowance. Professor Abdul Aziz Al-Sulaiman, head of the Department of Arabic Language at Teachers' College in King Faisal University in Dammam, thanked King Abdullah, Custodian of the Two Holy Mosques, for his personal concern for citizens' affairs and his keenness to meet their demands. Professor Al-Sulaiman hoped that the residential units which will be constructed within the universities' campus will match the needs of the Saudi academics suggesting that all the teaching staff in all universities should be paid housing allowance till the time the residential units are allotted to them. He also hoped the committee in charge would review the conditions set for the payment of the new allowances as they do not apply to the majority of teachers. He also suggested an increase in salary rather than increasing some allowances here and there. __
