Teachers at private schools face ‘relentless exploitation’

They came here to teach students with great hopes of pursuing a noble profession but now have been reduced to the status of slaves. Teachers at private schools are demanding a probe by the Ministry of Education into high-levels of exploitation they are being subjected to.

They say they are always under intense pressure, working long hours without breaks for salaries that are below established standards. Speaking to Tribune, a teacher at a private school, who doesn’t want to be named, said, “A good number of teachers at private schools in the Kingdom face inhuman treatment from the part of management as we got no one to speak for us. “We are not even given chairs to sit in classrooms. There are no special staff rooms. We are often tortured with heavy workloads by the management.

“Most of them face physical exhaustion and health issues after teaching for long hours without breaks. I believe we are being subjected to torture in the absence of a strict regulator to monitor how all private schools in the Kingdom are treating their staff.”

Another teacher with a private school, who to don’t want to be named, fearing for her job, said salaries paid to them are, in most cases, lower than minimum wages earned by some of the ‘free-visa workers’. “We, teachers, are most often taken for granted by the management. Our monthly salaries are as low as BD150- BD200. Annual increases are not more than BD5. “These managements charge a heavy fee from parents, but never offer us decent salaries.”