IN the morning when children go to schools and employees go to their offices, I like to read the newspapers while having my cup of coffee. This is a moment of serenity and calmness that is not spoiled by the noises of the children or the idle talk of the employees, who will be away in their offices at this time busy eating their sandwiches. I read in Al-Eqtisadiah newspaper an article by Abdullah Al-Maghlouth titled: “Oh God, please burn down our school”. He cited the experiences of a number of our students studying on scholarships abroad. When these students came back home armed with high degrees, the first thing they noticed was that their children no longer loved their schools. This lack of love was a far cry from their conditions in Britain, where they loved their schools and used to wait anxiously to go back to them after the weekend. Al-Maghlouth said he attended a class with his six-year-old daughter in a state-run British primary school. There were two female teachers in the classroom, which only had about eight students. The chairs and desks were not organized in rows but were facing each other and were covered with pictures of flowers, clouds and cats. The students voted to choose the story to be read to them by their teachers. The teacher would re-read the story to each individual student who might have difficulty in reading or understanding it. She would also do their homework with them. During the class, the students would drink water or juice and eat their sandwiches in special places in the classroom designated for this purpose. They were also free to go to the nearby bathrooms without having to get permission. In our classrooms the students would have to raise their hands to get permission from the teachers to go to the toilets. Of course, there are no schools in our country like the government school that Al-Maghlouth had enrolled his children in Manchester. No doubt we need many years to be convinced that education is not a heavy duty but an enjoyment and pleasure. As the morning drew by, I had a daydream where I saw my great-granddaughter eating an apple at her government school in the presence of her class teacher. A car screeched on the street near my house so I woke up from my sweet daydreams. Before I had finished my cup of caffeinated coffee, I read another story in Al-Watan newspaper. The story spoke about the predicament of 600 girl students and 50 female teachers in a school at the Rawdah district of Riyadh who suffered a lot from a lack of toilets since the beginning of the academic year. The school permitted the parents to take their daughters to their homes to use the toilets and then bring them back. The schoolteachers would go to a nearby private health center to use the toilets there or go to the room of the school guard. The school principal said water had been leaking on the ground floor for more than 15 years without anybody doing anything about it. She complained that the school was on the verge of collapse. She said the situation was worse for schoolteachers suffering from diabetes or high blood pressure. The principal said she had been pleading with the contractor to fix the toilets and stop the water leakage and every time he told her that he had 10 other schools to look after, not only her school. She said she had been writing letters and sending copies of the contract with the contractor to all concerned officials but nothing had happened. After reading the morning papers I would like to send my greetings to the Ministry of Education and thank it for its efforts in the construction, planning and development. One final request to the ministry: Would you be so kind as to fix the toilets in this girls school before my dream evaporates into thin air?
