The Minister of Education has ordered a committee to urgently look into pay discrepancies between male and female schoolteachers appointed between 1996 and 1998. According to Fahd Al-Tayyash, the ministry's Educational Media Supervisor General, the committee has been formed of representatives from the General Administration for Administrative and Financial Affairs and the ministry's Agency for School Affairs and been tasked with identifying the reasons for the differences in salaries before submitting its findings for consideration. The Teachers Committee at the ministry said the solution to the intake over the three years under study would be equal pay in accordance with salary scales set by the Ministry of Civil Service for male and female teachers, citing laws stipulating that male and female educators with the same qualifications receive equal conditions in terms of salary, allowances and end-of-service benefits. Earlier this month a six-member group representing 97,000 women teachers from across the Kingdom presented Noura Al-Fayez, Deputy Minister of Education for Girls' Education, with a multiple-demand petition for equal conditions. The petition requests equal pay for male and female teachers, and blames disparities on the failure to put into effect new pay scales and benefits. Al-Fayez said that the Ministry of Civil Affairs and the Kingdom's Labor Law “do not discriminate in the application of appointment regulations between male and female job applicants” and that she would do “everything necessary to fulfill the demands of the teachers”. The petition group said they were pleased by Al-Fayez's commitment to address their demands, but, according to petitioner Mona Abdul Aziz, were dismayed that the deputy minister appeared to be unaware of the salary discrepancies until they approached her.
