Bahrain private schools free to start term before Eid

BACK TO SCHOOL: Private schools in Bahrain can choose their own academic year. (Getty Images)

Bahrain’s private schools have been given clearance by the Ministry of Education to control the start and finish of their academic year.

Parents urged the ministry to force private schools to start their new term after Eid, following a decision by education authorities to change the calendar of government schools.

But, a ministry spokesperson said the academic year was “an individual choice decided by the school, according to its statute,” reported Gulf News.

"Some of the schools open their doors at the same time as the foreign-based schools with they are affiliated to and therefore they synchronise their academic year with them," the spokesperson said.

“We appreciate the calls by parents to postpone the start of the new year to make it coincide with that of the government schools, but such a decision is left to the concerned schools.”

Government schools will start their next school year after Eid, which is expected to fall on September 20. Officials took the step of changing the date after concerns pupils would not attend before the holiday.

“Each private school has its own conditions and concerns and their 2009-2010 calendar is entirely their own,” the ministry spokesperson added.

“We are fully aware that they all comply with the official days off decreed by the government, but the rest is decided at heir own discretion,” the education ministry spokesperson said.

The ministry has over the last years resisted calls by parents to have the private school align their mid-school year holidays, usually taken in December, with those of government schools, invariably taken in February.

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