RIYADH – Mansour Al-Khenaizan, chairman of the national committee of international schools at the Council of Saudi Chambers, has cautioned the Ministry of Education against fixing tuition fees of private schools and forcing them to comply with it. If such a decision is taken, it would affect the quality of education in the long run, he added. Al-Khenaizan said some private schools might get around the system and try to illegally impose fees to increase revenues. “For example, they might increase registration fees, ask students to buy school supplies or increase the number of students in each class,” Al-Riyadh newspaper quoted him as saying. Al-Khenaizan's statement came following the Council of Ministers' recent decision that the Ministry of Education should review the tuition fees charged by private schools and bring in necessary changes conforming with existing regulations. “We must put high-quality education as our primary goal over any other goals when revising tuition fees,” Al-Khenaizan said. “I'm completely against letting private schools increase their tuition fees without any type of monitoring or control from the concerned authorities. Some schools are only after profits and forget that they have a mission to achieve.” Al-Khenaizan said that the ministry should classify private schools according to the quality of service and during annual reviews of their performance, they should grade them according to certain criteria like the percentage of Saudization achieved. He urged the ministry to adopt innovative methods to cut tuition fees and prevent private schools from raising them. This can be done by, for example, by encouraging private schools to merge and form share-holding companies. By doing so, they will be able to provide comprehensive educational services and cut down on expenses. He stressed the importance of the ministry cooperating with the Department of Competition Protection in the Ministry of Commerce and Industry to make private schools more aware of the culture of fair competition among themselves. Such cooperation will also prevent private schools from collectively taking decisions to increase their tuition fees at the same time, he said.
