House nod to keep check on increase of school fee

After a heated debate, MPs yesterday agreed to approve a law to restrict the increase of students’ fee at schools, it is learnt. Private schools will not be able to increase the school fee every year, according to a law passed by the parliament yesterday. MPs voted in favour of restricting school fees to not more than three per cent every three years. The conclusion was made after heated discussions between MPs in yesterday’s parliament session for more than two hours.

MPs argued that some private schools have increased fees so much that it has become unaffordable to many Bahrainis. They said such increases are immoral especially in the education sector.  This comes after new performance based criteria was launched last year where only schools rated “Good” or “Excellent” will be authorised to increase students’ fees by five per cent, pending board of directors’ approval. 

The new fee readjustment procedures took effect at the beginning of the school year 2018/2019, in line with the ministerial edict dated August 27, 2017. According to the criteria, in case the increase in school fees exceeds the nominal 5pc benchmark, the approval of the school board and parent’s council would be required for the hike to be endorsed. Fourteen private schools are rated as high-performing, out of 73 privately-owned educational establishments.

The Education Ministry officials at the time said that any increase would be performance based, taking into account the review reports, periodically released by the Education and Training Quality Authority (BQA).  The ministry urged representatives of the high-performing school to communicate with students’ parents before increasing school fees, stressing the ministry’s keenness on encouraging private education investment. 

A few weeks ago, a group of MPs submitted a proposal to impose a BD100 monthly fee on each expat student studying in public schools. According to sources, the proposal was submitted by five MPs; Mamdouh Al Saleh, Abdulnabi Salman, Ghazi Al Rahma, Kaltham Al Hayki and Ali Ishaqi. The MPs demanded to amend the existing Law 27 of 2005 with regard to education, adding an article that stipulates imposing an amount of not less than BD100 a month or BD600 a year on each non-Bahraini pupil studying in public schools in the Kingdom.

The new proposal also instructed to exclude students holding GCC nationalities from paying the fees. The MPs quoted some of the statistics in their proposal, mentioning that the proposed fee is low, considering the fact that each expat student annually costs the government BD3,000. The lawmakers also said the proposal aims to reduce the high costs on the Government of Bahrain and generate revenues, adding that expat students in public schools form a large percentage.

However, the proposal must go through a number of channels, including several committees of the council, before it could be referred to the 40-member council for voting. A similar proposal was rejected by the government in 2017. The previous proposal stipulated imposing annual fees of BD400 on non-Bahraini students studying in public schools. The existing law stipulates that “fundamental (primary and intermediate) and secondary education should be free for all in public schools in the Kingdom”.