School freeze

As private schools struggle to keep up with the rise in inflation, will government caps on tuition fees put quality education on ice?

In Kuwait, five private schools are preparing to take the government to court. These schools have all raised their tuition fees more than the 5% allowed by the ministry of education, which they believe is abusing its power.

In response, the Kuwaiti government has frozen their financial transactions, threatened to rescind their licences and demanded they return the extra fees to parents.

Throughout the region, rising rents and increasing inflation are eating into both private schools' profit margins, and parents' ability to keep up with tuition costs.

In an attempt to placate both sides, governments have set caps on the amount schools can increase their fees each year.  Many, however, are questioning whether these caps will sound the death knell for quality education in the region.

For Noura Al Ghanim, director of Universal American School, one of the Kuwaiti schools taking the government to court, the answer is a resounding yes.  "I'm fighting for quality education," she says.

"Teachers' pay has gone up, but I'm looking for quality.  I don't want to end up recruiting teachers who can't implement the American curriculum."

Ghanim's decision to disregard the government cap came when she could no longer absorb her losses. "We've just moved into new premises," she says, "with new buildings that cost us approximately US$12.7 million. We have loans that have to be met and obligations that have to be fulfilled, and our only income is the tuition."

The government's decision to set the increase at 5%, she continues, was not justified. "We could not find any grounds for the ministry to actually base a decision of 5% to implement on us. They haven't given any reason, they haven't told us the criteria, they haven't even visited our schools to check if we actually need 5%. Maybe we need only two or three, maybe we need 12%. I just wish the ministry would have done its homework before implementing such decisions."

Mohammed Al Dahes, general manager of the private education sector at the Kuwaiti ministry of education, says the 5% cap, increased from 3% a year before, was to account for inflation.

"We came to 5% through a study, but not a big study," he says. "There are five schools saying this is not enough, but they are only five. Most schools are satisfied with the 5%, I can say 90% are satisfied.  But these other schools, I don't know, maybe they have problems or maybe they want more profits."

Wael Abdul Ghafoor, owner of the American School of Kuwait, did not follow Ghanim's lead, but admits a lack of understanding between schools and the ministry.

"They look at school owners as butchers," he says, "like they are taking profits and putting them in their own pockets." Though he expresses dissatisfaction with the ministry's 5% cap, he has complied to keep the peace.

"We can't build the new laboratories we budgeted for because the increase wasn't enough for us," he says. "I disagree with the ministry, but I don't want to go against them. At the end of the day I want to have a good and legal relationship with them, so whatever they give me, I take."

The ultimate solution to the problem, Abdul Ghafoor says, is to allow the free market to dictate school fees. "We are in the private sector. If you have two restaurants, for example, one fine dining and the other a takeaway, you decide for yourself where you want to go.  We should have the freedom, like everywhere else."

The economic conditions which caused the government caps issue to boil over in Kuwait are quietly simmering in other countries in the region. In Bahrain, rent increases, coupled with tuition caps, are putting a serious squeeze on schools' ability to operate.

"Bahrain does not allow private schools to increase fees without ministry of education approval, which in the past has been denied or subject to cuts in the amount requested," says a principal of an international school in Bahrain, who did not wish to be named. "The next round of requests for fee increases will show whether this attitude has changed."

Local inflation, he continues, "is also having an impact on school budgets, for the first time in over 20 years."

The increase in rent and accommodation costs, furthermore, is proving nearly impossible to absorb. "In some cases, landlords are increasing rents by 40% and, in one case, by 60%.  There is no control on rents - it is a free market, but schools, in a controlled market, are unable to respond to these increases in the way that they need to," he adds.

"Finding accommodation that schools can afford and teachers will agree to live in is becoming more and more difficult."

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