Saudi- Private school teachers want increase in salary

(MENAFN- Arab News) Despite an increase in the wages recently private schools teachers have raised the issue of getting low salaries once again. They claim that the recent raise in their salaries were small and inconsistent with the increased costs of living they claim.

'I am a teacher in a private school and my sister is in a government school. She was hired three years after me however there is a clear and significant difference in our salaries' claimed Afnan Majid. She sees it as a clear discrimination between public and private schools.

Nahal Hassan a private school teacher agreed saying the unfair discrimination is raising frustration among teachers.

According to Mizin Khaled owners of the private schools care only about profit and thus are more likely to pay lower salaries to their staff unlike their counterparts in the government sector.

The school owners and several experts however differed with the teachers.

Suad Al-Harkan the owner and director of a private school said: 'The current wages are much better than they were and salary increases for teachers will lead to an increase in student fees as well as increases in other school expenses such as rent water electricity telephone bills Internet bills and more.'

Malik bin Talib the chairman of the private schools committee at the Chamber of Commerce said the salaries of private schools were increased a year and half ago with the payment of salaries divided between the human resources fund and the school for a period of five years after which the salary is fully paid by the school.

Dr. Khaled Maimani head of Human Resources Management Department at the Faculty of Economics and Management and a member of the Human Resources Committee at the Jeddah Chamber of Commerce said he supports the position of teachers in private schools regarding lower salaries as compared to public schools adding that another problem facing these teachers is the lack of job security which is not as prevalent in the government sector.

'If we look at the annual subsidy paid by the state for the private schools we can see it is determined based on a schedule and according to the capacity of the schools' added Malik bin Talib.

He said there are suggestions that the human resources fund pays SR2000 Hafez pays SR2000 and the school pays SR2000 to allow for an increase in salaries.

According to Dr. Salem Bajajh of Taif University the other problem is that incentives in the private sector are lower than in the public sector as is evidenced in the salary differences. He said most salaries range between SR2500 and SR3500 which is much less than the salaries in the public schools.