In an exclusive interview with Al-Madina newspaper, Malik Bin Taleb, Chairman of the Private Schools’ Committee at the Jeddah Chamber of Commerce and Industry said that about 200,000 students may not be able to enroll in schools next year because of the government’s revised regulations which invalidates any increase in fees of private schools in the Kingdom.

Bin Taleb claimed that investors reacted to the new regulations by claiming that the implementation of the rules would divert them from investing in private schools. According to Bin Taleb, investors suffer from the extensive follow-ups with officials from the Labor Ministry, Passport Department, Civil Defense, Mayoralties, and the Ministry of Education. “An investor has to deal with five or six government bodies, each of them with their own sets of demands, requirements and conditions. This means that the investors have no choice but to meet the conditions of all these authorities. Thus the failure to meet a condition for any of these bodies delays the completion of the other procedures.”

He also criticized the multiplicity of government bodies concerned with private schools affairs. For Bin Taleb, the differences between private and public schools are negligible as both “serve the country and each of them focuses in the field which they have been created for. Thus, both private and public education complements each other.”

He added that some private schools depend on foreign teachers due to the high turnover rate of Saudi teachers. According to him, most Saudi teachers in private schools have taken the job as a last choice and refuse to renew their contract until the last minute, which “creates great inconveniences for the investors who must have already looked for replacements.”