TAIF: Around 10,000 female teachers competing for seats on the Consultative Council for Teachers in Taif have voiced frustration over an all-male committee scrutinizing their applications. “Why should men evaluate female teachers for the seats while women principals, their assistants, and supervisors have their applications evaluated by an all-female committee?” one woman teacher asked. The Taif Education Department has ignored the leading educational role of all female teachers, by asking men to evaluate their suitability for council seats, she added. In a gender-conscious society, the decision to have the applications of women teachers reviewed by men “had nothing to do with gender-bias,” said Muhammad Sa'eed Abu Ras, chairman of the council. “The members of the committee of men were all appointed according to their administrative posts regardless of their gender,” he said. Application files for the female competitors were processed at all Taif girls' schools, which in turn forwarded the lists to the main committee for evaluation, he added. The Girls' Education Department in Taif recently formed two separate committees; one to study the applications of all female teachers and another to study the applications of all female principals, their assistants, and supervisors, he said. The first one happened to be co-chaired by a senior male teacher from the Boys' Education Department and a female supervisor from the Girls' Education Department. The second committee was co-chaired by three women; the assistant director for Education Affairs, the director of education supervision, and the head of the Schools Administration. The female teachers, however, still had their questions unanswered: Why was a committee of their peers not assigned to scrutinize their applications for council seats in the same way that one was tasked to scrutinize the files of female principals, their assistants, and supervisors? They called for assigning this task to leading education officials or to a committee of women, for the sake of transparency in the nomination process.
