Saudi Gazette report JEDDAH – Fifteen air-conditioning units malfunctioned on the reopening day at one of the schools in Jeddah forcing school officials to cram more than 80 students in each classroom, press reports said on Monday. School officials also complained about proliferation of rodents on the school premises. Frequent power cuts in another intermediate girls school in the city made the girls abandon their school. The students at the 81st Girls' School were stunned when they found that 15 of the air-conditioners in the school were out of order, a matter that forced the school's staff to move the students to other classrooms. “This turned the classrooms into what was more like sardine cans,” said a school employee. The very next day parents crowded the school's office, piling pressure on school officials to find a solution. Commenting on this, the headmistress said the school was in a good condition until the devastating flood of 2009 that submerged the entire Quwaizah district, where the school is located. “The floods turned the school into ruins. She said since then the school has been suffering from a proliferation of rats and other insects though the school was refurbished completely.” The headmistress said she tried to contact engineers in the public schools maintenance department in Jeddah without success because their phones were turned off. The situation at the 5th Intermediate Girls' School in Jeddah is not any better as the students suffer from repeated power outages. Since the beginning of the new school year the entire school has been in total dark and without air-conditioning because of the power disruption. The school's headmistress attributed the power cut to a big hole dug by a contractor adjacent to the school, which damaged the electric cables that supply the school with power. Parents have expressed their anger about the sufferings of their children. An official source said the Ministry of Education and the Saudi Electricity Company have a joint maintenance team working around the clock to solve problems in any of the schools in the city.
