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Bad news again about private educational sector

IT HAS become a habit for us to every day read something about the educational field, particularly the private educational sector. Media reports recently said that students of a private school were trying to repeat the scenes of the marvellous 1967 film of Sidney Poitier, ‘To Sir With Love’. All of us remember in the film how the students were indecent with their teacher who was a man.

Now, what comes as a shock is the report that revealed a female Arabic teacher suffering the misbehaviour of her students, which led her to quit her job and complain against the school management for aviding taking deterrent action against the young brats. The students are in a very critical phase of their age, being teenagers. They need a male teacher, and it is a big mistake to appoint a female teacher for students of this critical age group.

Anyway, the phenomenon of misbehaviour is not confined to male students alone. We remember the case of a female student who took indecent photos of herself and showed them to her classmates. The management of the private school in Abu Dhabi, in fact, was not strict with the students, which led them to continue harassing the teacher.

It was not only the indecent behaviour of the students alone. The teacher also revealed many other violations. She said that the school management violated the Labour Law by forcing teachers to sign a contract which paid them Dh1,000 less than the amount fixed by both the Ministry of Labour and the Ministry of Education. Also, the school allowed co-education in its classes, which is prohibited under the local educational laws.

The private educational sector is badly in need of care from the departments concerned, as about 60 per cent of the students in UAE are in private schools. So, it is imperative to increase the inspectors of both the Ministry of Labour and Ministry of Education.

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