Number of parents express desire to leave Kuwait

KUWAIT CITY, July 11: The fog of the 2019-2020 school year has suspended due to the COVID-19 crisis which has led many families to lose stability.

A number of parents have expressed their desire to leave Kuwait as soon as their children graduate from the 12th grade and obtain high school certification.

At the same time, the Ministry of Education announced the completion of the “online” school year on Aug 4, even though problems still surround the educational platform amid the silence of the ministry.

Parents compared the measures taken by foreign schools to complete the online school year and the success of their students without final exams as well as the vague procedures taken by the public education sector from the start of the crisis until now.

They said, “We pay KD 350 per month as rent for the apartment where we live. We deal with all the difficult living conditions that face us in light of the disruption of work, for the sake of the future of our children’s education. Unfortunately, the picture is not clear in the Ministry of Education, which received dozens of proposals, regarding the academic year from all educational, parliamentary and public circles.”

The ministry’s excuse for not completing the school year is to ensure the quality of education for the students in Kuwait, and avoid harming the academic level of their educational certificates.

However, are the foreign school students immune to this guarantee? Are they outside the ministry’s accounts? Thousands of students rejected all proposals submitted to the ministry during the previous period”.

The parents said their suffering, which started since the time the total ban was imposed on some areas, began to multiply day after day, especially since many of them lost their jobs and do not have any source of income at the present time.

They stressed that the nightmare of the demographic makeup chases them daily, but the time has come to arrange their conditions and provide some stability for their families as soon as their children graduate.

In this regard, some directors of educational zones said all that is presented in terms of the academic year are speculations that are not based on any official decision. They affirmed that the Minister of Education and Higher Education Dr Saud Al-Harbi will submit his report to the Cabinet on July 15, after which the matter will be discussed in the parliament in coordination with the Ministry of Health.

The directors said, “We have not held the Cabinet’s meeting in the last one month to decide whether to end the school year or not. We have referred to them all the speculation and proposals since the beginning of the crisis”.

They went on to say, “The ministry’s approach is mainly focused on implementing the proposal to end the academic year for grades from the first primary to the 11th grade. (Al Rai)