DOHA: Criticized for ignoring Qataris in its recruitment drive for primary teachers and instead preferring expatriate women, the Supreme Education Council (SEC) has hit back.
The SEC has said it has a continuing hiring programme for citizens and jobs are guaranteed for them in state schools after they finish graduation and a diploma course in education or teachers’ training courses.
The Monthly salary for a junior Qatari teacher in an Independent School can, for instance, go up to QR28,000 (for the unmarried) and QR30,000 for the married, earlier media reports suggest.
Besides, Qatari teachers, if they put in some extra hours a day, are paid up to QR5,000 extra a month, according to these media reports.
The SEC sent a rejoinder to Al Sharq in reply to an earlier report that quoted some Qataris as saying that expatriate women were preferred to qualified locals for Independent school teaching jobs.
The SEC said a lot of Qatari teachers who had earlier quit jobs had come back after the salary and allowances for Qatari teachers were upped 120 percent under new regulations.
Recently, the Council has recruited 280 teachers and many of them are Qataris, said the SEC.
Teaching jobs are guaranteed in primary sections for Qataris who hold a bachelor’s degree in education. Similarly, primary teachers’ jobs are guaranteed for Qatari university graduates who do a diploma in teaching. Then, if eligible Qataris complete different training courses, they are offered junior teachers’ jobs, said the SEC.
“The SEC is always keen to recruit local hands in both teaching and non-teaching positions (in Independent schools),” the Council said.
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