By Zaid Aboobacker
KUWAIT: In the pursuit of preparing future generations, the school system is experiencing a wave of discontent. From rigid and color-specific dress codes to lack of opportunities, expatriate students are displeased with their schools. Students also do not see teachers as mentors who can guide them. They cannot be blamed for this mindset alone, as many teachers in Kuwait join as part-timers in schools with little to no experience in the field of teaching. Since these teachers ask for very little salaries, schools are more than happy to recruit them after seeing a bachelor’s degree.
Good teachers do exist, but they are few in number, according to students. One of the reasons good teachers aren’t arriving in Kuwait might be because of visa issues, which have a negative impact on teachers’ mental health because they are unable to bring their families to the country where they live. Schools are admitting more students than their capacity, which increases the student-to-teacher ratio in classes, consequently reducing the quality of education. Many teachers provide extra tuitions in their homes for an extra source of income. This might lead to teachers teaching less in school and focusing more on their tuitions.
"You can buy books and uniforms from school, but education itself is acquired elsewhere,” said Ali, a former student who studied in Kuwait for the past 12 years. Michael, an 11-year-old sixth grade student, told Kuwait Times he was forced to buy very specific type of shoes. He also complained the school splits textbooks into a number of very short volumes and also updates the textbooks every year so students cannot borrow textbooks from their seniors and are forced to buy them from the school.
A lack of internships and opportunities for expatriate students also makes them mostly dependent on their grades for their university applications, while field trips and outdoor activities have reduced over the years. Fatima, a four-year-old kindergarten student, said she and her classmates have only one physical education class per week. This means that they only get access to playgrounds once every week. Rayhaan, a student from the same school, said seniors face congestion during sports periods, as too many students are on the playing field, because the school schedules all classes of his grade into the same 45-minute session.
When schools take students to amusement parks for annual field trips, students also experience overcrowding there due to multiple classes and schools present in the same place at the same time. Omar, a student from one of these schools, said the essence of the trip, which is to enjoy the rides and hang out with friends, is ruined due to the large crowds present there.
A number of private schools in the UAE have already introduced the use of laptops and tablets in classrooms, but private schools in Kuwait are lagging behind in this regard. Schools have exerted efforts to increase the quality of education by creating new infrastructure and regulations, but students are unimpressed and view such moves as only to make more profits. The students are given no reason to believe otherwise.