Tuition fees for national and foreign school students were announced as a new academic year commenced in our country. The strange thing, however, is that there is a marked rise in school expenses. In some cases they have doubled.
The strangest thing is that the increase in the tuition fees was imposed only on Qatari students, while non-Qatari students are paying fees without any hike.
Therefore, I decided to go to one of the schools to find out the reason behind this. At first I thought that they might replace the seats of Qatari students with seats made of pure gold or that the teachers who teach Qatari students are the top teachers in the world in their way of education, like Einstein, or that they have built classes dedicated to Qatari students equipped with means of luxury and modern devices.
But instead I found the following:
1. The schools prefer accepting foreign students over Qatari students.
2. Qatari students sit in the same class and on the same seats as foreign students.
3. The same teachers teach both Qatari and non-Qatari students.
4. Fees for school books and transportation were up, and I tried to figure out why the Supreme Education Council had approved raising these fees for Qatari students only, but I failed despite my experience.
Two lists of prices: one for citizens and another for foreigners, are known across the world. But the difference between Qatar and other countries is that in Qatar the lower prices are for foreigners.
When I studied in the United Kingdom, tuition fees for English students would reach £1,100, while they would go up to £6,700 for other students.
Even in Egypt, we would find that hotel rates for foreigners were very high in comparison with prices for Egyptians. The situation is reverse in Qatar in many ways. The process of exploiting Qatari citizens has become obvious in many fields.
Some of these acts of taking advantage of Qatari citizens were officially approved by government authorities, especially when it comes to private schools and Qatari airlines.
Raising tuition fees would have been acceptable if it was due to some new services related to the quality of education, the curricula or the efficiency of teachers, but instead the reasons are unknown and I see that it is not acceptable and it needs to be revised, and every official who proposed the raise or approved it must be held accountable and questioned.
It is true that the government is paying the fees of students at private schools through coupons, but this is a waste of public money for the benefit of administrations of private schools that have used the coupon system illegally.
Worse still, these schools began imposing extra fees over the price of the coupons to plunder the citizens’ money. Some other schools are operating as profitable trading companies, as they demand that students buy their stationery from certain shops and get their school uniform from certain tailors who only have the required kind of fabric.
This procedure is followed by other countries, but the difference is that the schools in these countries require students to buy their school items from certain shops that offer special prices to students, unlike in our country, where schools recommend shops that sell these items at high prices because of some mutual interest.
During a phone call for the TV programme “Good Morning my Beloved Country”, a student’s parent mentioned that she had found a cheaper school uniform in one of the shopping malls with only a slight difference in the fabric, but not the colour.
I was sad when I saw a citizen’s comment on one of the pages of the website of Al Sharq, which said that his children did not go to school for four days because he could not afford the insanely high fees.
I do not blame private schools, but I blame the government for approving such racial discrimination between Qatari citizens and non-Qataris. These non-citizens are now enjoying our country’s welfare and bounties while the citizens are watching with heartbreak.
Islam protects five necessities for the human being, namely religion, life, family and offspring, money and brain. It also prescribes boundaries to protect them in the community.
For protecting money, Allah prohibited thievery, cheating, scams, looting and whatever leads to taking people’s money unjustly. As the money of people should be preserved, public money should also be preserved, as wasting it is a great sin in Islam because it affects the whole nation and not just a single person. It is not allowed for any public servant, whether a minister or an administrator, to waste public money.
Finally, we have to say that education, as defined by the Qatari constitution, is one of the basic pillars of social progress and the state shall ensure, foster and promote it. It also states that all citizens have the right to education and the state shall endeavour to make education compulsory and free of charge in accordance with the applicable laws and regulations of the state. But what is happening in reality contradicts what the constitution states. We cry out loud, “Remember people, Qatari citizens do not own petrol pipelines that pour into their houses.”
