JEDDAH, 24 October 2005 — The Ministry of Education has opened a new unit for receiving and dealing with complaints from girls’ schools, women teachers and supervisors. The complaints can be sent via fax or e-mail.

Women teachers and administrators have expressed optimism about the new unit and hope that it will solve many problems which are stalled by bureaucratic administrators.

According to Al-Watan Arabic newspaper, Dr. Abdul Aziz Al-Harithy, the deputy minister of education for educational affairs, said that the goal of the unit was to raise the standard and quality of services for girls’ schools and education supervisory administrations.

The deputy minister said that the unit would reduce some of the burdens on schools and teachers in following up their problems and would also be effective in taking care of maintenance problems as quickly as possible.

Several school principals and teachers have said that many of their complaints, especially those dealing with maintenance, are ignored or not addressed promptly until a disaster occurs.

“Complaints about out-of-order airconditioners or crumbling walls and ceilings take a long time for the maintenance department to take care of. This not only creates stress but also affects our morale,” a school principal said.

A teacher whose contract is renewed annually said that they suffered the most from the bureaucracy because their rights were not given priority.

“We have not been paid for the last three months. The administration keeps giving us lame excuses with complete disregard for our rights — as if we were not employees like the rest of the staff,” she said.

Teachers hope that by being able to file complaints directly to the ministry, pressure will be put on their administrations to respond or at least be more vigilant in their work. At the same time, they hope that the new unit will not simply create useless paperwork and further bureaucratic delay.

Elementary Exam Confusion: Several newspapers have reported that the Ministry of Education plans to eliminate midterm and final exams for fourth, fifth and sixth grade students starting next school year. Instead, it will apply the “continued evaluation” system adopted a few years ago for the first, second and third year elementary students.

The “continued evaluation” system was adopted in order to reduce exam anxiety and pressure on elementary students. Students pass to the next level based on teachers’ observations of performance and the teachers’ notes recorded four times during the year.