MAKKAH — The Department of Education in Makkah has started identifying girls schools in remote locations that would be able to provide the option of a three-day working week to its teachers following a recent directive issued by Education Minister Prince Khaled Al-Faisal. The decision, to be applied from next semester, is aimed at reducing road accidents that have claimed the lives of many female teachers and students. Director of the department, Mohammed Bin Mahdi Al-Harithy, expected the directive to be a success and recalled that it was successfully executed before on a trial basis about five years ago by the departments of education in Al-Laith and Jazan. He said the difference this time was that the new directive would be implemented according to clear-cut mechanisms set by the ministry. He said the schools would be chosen according to certain criteria that would take into account remoteness, the difficulty of terrain, the number of students and the number of transfer requests made by teachers or students. The ministry's spokesman Fahd Al-Harithy said on Monday that, if successful, the decision would also cover male teachers in remote areas.
