No security cheques for school fees

Private schools are not permitted to take post dated cheques from parents as guarantee for payment of school fees, a senior official of the Supreme Education Council (SEC) has said.

Schools are also not allowed to collect fees from students before the declared schedule, according to Hamad Al Ghali, Director of the Private Schools Office at SEC. And parents must be properly informed about the payment schedule.

Speaking on the occasion of the start of the new academic year, Al Ghali said that a total of 158,642 students are currently enrolled in 156 private schools and 86 private kindergartens in the country.

Sixteen new schools and KGs are in the final stages of preparations to obtain SEC licence. They include one Indian school, two French, seven following the British curriculum and one using American curriculum.

Al Ghali visited several private schools to assess their preparations for the new academic year and check their compliance with the SEC rules and regulations, Al Sharq reported.

The official said 7,888 seats are vacant in the private schools this academic year in different levels and aspiring students can apply. Some schools have opened new branches adding 1,384 seats to the total capacity. Majority of the vacancies are in schools following the British curriculum amounting to 5,491 while 783 seats are available in Indian schools, he said.

Al Ghali urged all the schools to strictly comply with SEC rules and regulations. In violation of the rules, some private schools are forcing students to buy school stationaries and education aids from outside although they are supposed to provide them and their price is included in the school fees, he said.

In a response to a recent report carried by local Arabic daily Al Arab on parents complaints about high school fees, Al Ghali said the Private Schools Office is strictly monitoring the fee increases in schools. “If any private school has imposed a fee without approval, the SEC will force the school to refund it in 24 hours. Every year we assess the financial status of each school and check all the fees paid by parents to ensure that schools comply with the rules. Fee hikes are done under strict monitoring and do not go beyond five per cent,” the daily quoted Al Ghali as saying.

Providing transportation to students is optional for schools but those providing the service should do it properly. If any school fails to provide transport during the first week of the school year then it must refund the money allocated for that period.

Al Ghali said the SEC is ready to listen to any complaint from parents and his office has set up a hotline service – 155 - for this purpose. He added that he is ready to share his mobile number with any parent who wants to lodge a complaint directly.The Peninsula