Al-Watan newspaper

THE current school year is about to end and parents who send their children to private schools have started worrying about the next academic year. Do I keep my son/daughter in the same school or look for another one? Will they increase academic fees next year giving false reasons? Are they going to impose additional financial burdens on us? Do their educational services commensurate with the amount of money I pay?

Parents aspire for their children to have the best possible education possible, even at the expense of some luxuries. This is particularly true for parents from upper middle class and middle class families, who are aware that there is no way to build a brighter future for their children except through education.

They spend every riyal to teach their children from kindergarten through the higher secondary school to make sure they get admission in premier colleges where most students compete with one another to get a seat, believing that it would help them receive good jobs with rewarding salaries.

Some parents want their children to pursue their higher education in reputable international universities and work hard to win easy acceptance in those foreign institutions, even without attending the preparatory course to pass the language exam. Perhaps this is the reason many parents are keen to teach their children English, despite its negative impact on their mother tongue Arabic and even after spending lots of money.

Apart from obtaining higher education and good knowledge and mastering foreign languages, parents want their children to study at schools having a clean and stimulating atmosphere and sit in vast and comfortable classrooms. They also want proper treatment for their children, taking into account their differences in learning capabilities and their skills.

They also aspire that the school atmosphere should be free from harassment, bullying and immorality. Government schools, which face several challenges often fail to create such an atmosphere. As a result, many parents send their children to private schools. But when you talk with parents you will find that most of them are not satisfied with the academic standard and services of private schools and complain about their high fees.

However, they assert that they would be ready to accept high cost if their children had received better services. Because of this dissatisfaction, we see a large number of students moving from one school to another.

As a result when a student completes 12 years of education, he will be attending classes at 6 or 7 schools instead of 3. Of course, shifting of students from one school to another will have a negative impact on their academic performance as they have to adapt to new school environment and establish new friendships. But parents insist that children have to bear with these side effects in order to get good education.

I know some families who were forced to shift their children from private schools to model public schools due to certain circumstances without any big expectations. But the outstanding results surprised not only parents but also students and those parents are now thinking why they wasted their money on private schools. They want all government schools from primary to secondary levels run like model schools for the benefit of middle or low income families. Some crazy private school owners believe that fees of all students are paid by private companies where their parents work.

Now the question is: How can the state or the Ministry of education support these parents in their endeavor to find a suitable school for their children?

Is there any independent body like in some developed countries such as Britain? These agencies classify schools after evaluating all aspects, so that parents get an idea where to register their children.

Is there any reliable government statistics regarding performance of public and private schools? Can we ask private schools to publish their annual reports highlighting performance of their students during the year, explaining how many students left them and how many new students joined them? Parents will not be able to make a decision without knowing the result of students who have previously studied in a school.

I know an old Jeddah school which does this and you can keep track of their students’ progress individually during the last 40 years. They have registered which universities and colleges their students have joined and which jobs they occupy? It’s not an easy task and many people change their jobs. However, I think they should try to obtain the percentage of marks they get at graduate level after completing secondary education.

It is true that there are individual differences among students. Some of them fail even after having all facilities and support but some others succeed without any support. These are exceptional cases, but the majority are influenced positively or negatively by the education they get.

At present parents depend on various social media groups on the Facebook and WhatsApp to know the educational standard of a school and they often receive incomplete and contradictory information, because each person in the group will have his/her own priorities.

Personal experience can help taking a decision. But it would be better if an authorized and specialized evaluation agency does that after collecting necessary data and statistics. It would be more reliable for parents to take a decision on admission of their children. It will not only save their time and energy but also get them out of the vicious circle.