Local Viewpoint By Salim Ahmad Sabah A-Madinah newspaper An Arab American friend mentioned to me that he had worked as a teacher for a year in one of the “high-class" primary schools teaching the US curriculum for an annual tuition fee of SR30,000. My friend praised the behavior of most young kids in the school, but complained about the bad manners of some and the school's insistence to keep them under the pretext that money is the engine that keeps the school running. If they go, their money too will go and the school cannot survive. Our friend said the bad conduct of these pupils reached such a degree that one of them even threatened to get a teacher deported. Despite many complaints lodged by the teachers with the school's administration, no action had been taken against the students. Not only this, the school had no problem at all if any of the teachers decided to hand in his resignation in protest. For the school, each teacher is an extra cost, but each pupil is a source of revenue. Oh God! This is commercial education and nothing else. I asked him what else? The courtyards of the school were clean and tidy in the morning, but they transformed into a big garbage bin by the end of the recess hour when the children eat and drink. He said, “We called for instilling some sense of discipline in them, including maintaining the school courtyards clean, but they were told there were workers to clean the rubbish left behind by the pupils." This is the modern style of imparting knowledge – cramming the student's brain with knowledge without discussing issues that some consider personal and unimportant. Their place is home. As to our “classy" private school, there is pampering and patting on the back, and all is paid for. You can imagine the inevitable consequences. It seems that mixing commerce with education creates contradictions because money always comes first — except in rare cases. Due to this, values crumble, morals turn topsy-turvy and facts are falsified. Money may be combined with healthcare, but combining it with education does not seem upright. Our forefathers realized this long ago and established endowments to inject money to offer education free of charge, so the word remained supreme and its voice the loudest. Who will bring us back the old generation! By the way, our friend resigned and left for good.
