ONE of the standards for (Council of British International Schools) COBIS membership is that ‘Text books and other support materials are such as might normally be used in schools in the UK.' My former colleagues at the schools I taught in had not studied from the British curriculum themselves and experienced difficulties in grasping the British curriculum and style of teaching. Consequently, they shunned textbooks geared specifically toward the National Curriculum and insisted on teaching pupils from those they felt more comfortable with. This invariably meant that students were not taught by methods corresponding to the National Curriculum requirements. As a former student of the British curriculum myself, I was annoyed and disheartened that the school was allowing such outright cheating to continue. Equally alarmingly, widespread rote-teaching, incessant fortnightly tests and the persistent use of physical punishment also prevailed. When I questioned the legitimacy or need to thwack disobedient pupils on the head or the back, I was told that this was the only way to discipline them. A while back I was introduced to Rania Saeed, a 36-year-old expatriate from India who has been living in Jeddah for the past twelve years and has been teaching in a variety of schools for most of that time. As a former teacher at the Indian International School of Jeddah – one that provides an Indian curriculum – she maintains that many of her former colleagues and former students are providing the bulk of the teachers within these schools. ‘Most of the teachers in this industry hail from India and they have been educated themselves by the CBSE curriculum. They are used to a very different kind of education than the UK's National Curriculum, and nobody ever questions that', she said. I asked her why she chose to teach at these schools and her frank reply was disturbing: ‘When you hear about less qualified people than you teaching at schools and earning effortless money, then you ignore your capabilities.' Similarly, much of the curriculum offered in the majority of the Kingdom's international schools is a baffling mix of the National Curriculum and the local curricula of secondary education in South Asian countries. The subjects of History, Music and Technology, for instance, are usually not deemed important enough to include in the curriculum. The Vice-Principal of a well-established international school in Jeddah was livid when I called her and questioned the school's bold (and dishonest) assertion in the prospectus that they offered the British curriculum all the way from Year 1 to Year 12. I asked the lady why she didn't just formally acknowledge that the curriculum was not fully ‘British'. ‘We are regularly inspected by a team from CIE. Do you think they would register us if we didn't provide a British education?' she asked me. I thought it pointless to argue that the Primary and lower Secondary curriculum of her school had nothing to do with CIE inspections and hung up. The formal description of many international schools makes deceptive reading – not unlike a travel brochure - and is often just as detached from reality. I truly believe that how a school looks has absolutely nothing to do with the quality of education it provides. However, I do take issue with the fact that these schools spend thousands upgrading their facilities to meet the strict requirements of CIE but leave their Primary and Lower Secondary sections in decidedly medieval settings. For instance, instead of providing an extra classroom for the Year 3 class I was teaching, the school management had decided to allocate us to the windowless former storage closet. It was cramped, suffocating and a blow to the attention-spans of my students because they couldn't wait to escape what became known as ‘the coffin'. In stark contrast, accreditation associations like COBIS and CIS attach a lot of importance to the facilities a school provides to its pupils. In fact, one of COBIS' standards for accreditation and membership is the provision of ‘building and facilities that are adequate for the number of pupils at the school and comply with local regulations.' Rania has two children of her own and believes that the inadequacy of the facilities at many schools contrasts sharply with those at the BISJ and JPGS campuses. ‘My son has visited Conti for inter-school Football matches and he always comes home and asks me why there are no such facilities at his own school,' she said. She thinks it is because her son rightly doesn't believe there should be any difference in the education he is receiving from that which those pupils are receiving. According to Mr. Gamwell, the fact that BISJ is a ‘not for profit institution' means that they are able to use funds accumulated from school fees to reinvest in the school, particularly for attracting quality teachers and providing the finest facilities. ‘Other schools do not have the same advantage. Many are for profit and need to ensure a return to their owners. This means that there is a potential for quality and standards to be compromised', he emailed in reply to my question about his opinion of new schools. Many schools I researched claimed they were answerable to some kind of stakeholders and Rania and Amina both agree that schools earn a lot of revenue and the people at the top – usually the Board - pocket substantial profit. For obvious reasons, however, nobody was willing to offer any details of the profit itself. Unfortunately, there is a little that can officially stop such schools from making illusive claims and misleading parents. Saudi Arabia's Ministry of Education concerns itself predominantly with public schools and has only issued a set of ‘expectations' for private schools to adhere to. One of these is to ‘establish training courses for teachers in order to improve their performance level'. Is this mere guideline enough for schools to feel obliged to adhere to such principles? A majority of the schools I researched were not even aware that the Ministry had ever issued such a list. Instead, there was repeated mention of the British Council's role and it is here that parents are completely hoodwinked. The Council is a registered charity in Britain and the power it exercises over international schools offering the British curriculum varies enormously from country to country. In the Kingdom, its role is specifically geared to CIE and the provision of information for higher education in the UK. Manar Al-Fousainy works for ‘Schools and Education' at the British Council in Jeddah and I asked her how the Council was related to these international schools. ‘We only have an education promotion advisor for the schools and the universities in the UK.' she said, adding ‘We aren't generally approached by schools before establishment and only check and establish them as exam centres and so on.' Her colleague in Riyadh, Yana Abu-Taleb, is the Project Manager for the department and commented during our telephone conversation that the Council operates schemes only for public schools, but quickly added that ‘...this scheme is not operating in private international schools'. Contrast the British Council to its counterpart in Spain, where it organises inspections of all British schools. The only fact that emerges is that any authority here that could possibly exude some control over these schools in almost unwilling to do so. The ambiguity of what these schools actually offer and who they cater to is a complexity that nobody wants to get involved in. Fortunately, there is a silver lining to all this. The British Government has recently announced plans to implement a scheme whereby British schools abroad - that have been examined by an inspection body quality-assured by Ofsted (the Office for Standards in Education) - to be formally recognised. ‘All parents will be able to see the inspection report of a British school on an independent inspectorate's website...I am confident that by offering the option of rigorous inspection of ‘British' schools in other countries we are able to maintain and improve standards and offer assurances to parents,' announced Baroness Morgan, Britain's Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Children, Young People and Families on October 11th. She adds that ‘It is important to protect the integrity of the ‘British schools' brand.' In essence, this measure means that from the next academic year onwards, schools claiming to offer a British education abroad must comply with the standards of independent schools in Britain, as well as undergo regular inspections. The difficulty now is how this measure will be implemented in Saudi Arabia and its densely populated private education system. Ultimately, there is nothing better than good old-fashioned parental scrutiny. Parents must become more vigilant when it comes to the school they enrol their children into; particularly when there are so many misleading options on offer. Most importantly, parents need to determine their own requirements and then search for a school accordingly. For the large majority that can afford a lower fee bracket but still want to provide a British education for their children, then Jeddah itself has at least three schools that are providing just that. The facilities may not be that great and not all the teachers will be fully qualified, but the schools will provide a sound – essentially British – education and healthy and progressive environment. The three most essential aspects of a school are Its facilities, staffing and the academic standards on offer. Look for the size of classrooms and what they contain, a well stocked library, well equipped laboratories, computer equipment, outdoor play areas and so on. Some schools have their own sports area and even a swimming pool. If not, what provision is made for sport? Many schools book sports centres and playing fields, which is certainly better than schools (like my previous workplace) that hold P.E. drills in the buses' parking lot. Similarly, it is vital that parents ask about the staff of the school. For instance, where the staff comes from, what qualifications they offer and how long they've been teaching in that school. For primary school children especially, it is essential that parents ask to meet the teachers and check if their child could adjust well with her. Equally important is to ask to see academic results. Keep in mind that if the school follows the National Curriculum even partially, then it should be able to show you Key Stage results or the kind of work children have been doing in class. While most private international schools in Saudi Arabia can't boast of a website (which should be made mandatory in my opinion), then online forums, blogs and websites like COBIS and BSME also provide a lot of help and advice. Personal recommendations are also very helpful. What do other parents have to say about the school? Talk to friends, colleagues and even random strangers at schools you visit. However, it is unwise to trust recommendations completely – perhaps someone has completely different education preferences than you. Fundamentally though, it remains in the best interest of all schools to be as honest and open as possible. In fact, one of the standards for accreditation by the CIS is that the ‘school keeps its promises' and ‘promises only what it can deliver.' This is the only thing that can keep educational standards in such schools from plummeting, taking with it the reputation of the institution itself.
