KUWAIT: The supreme privatization council’s advisory committee is currently considering setting a system to allow international companies to invest in Kuwait’s educational sector. It aims to bring American, Chinese and Korean experiences to Kuwait using public-private- partnership (PPP) or build-operate transfer (BOT) systems and attracting these companies by offering more incentives and facilities that would achieve long and short-term profits, said informed sources.

The sources added that the purpose of offering 10 public schools for privatization is driven by a need to gradually develop education through PPP, making use of the sums allocated for education in the budget as well as cutting the cost of education, bearing in mind that education consumes around 15 percent of the state budget.

The sources said that Ministry of Education’s technical office statistics show that educating a public school student costs the state KD 15,000 until finishing high school, a medicine student annually costs KD 100,000 while other university students annually cost KD 7,350 per student, which are large sums compared to the cost of studying in European and American universities.

The sources also noted that the privatization project will help the private sector invest in education, especially since teachers’ salaries already consume 93 percent of Kuwait’s education budget. Moreover, the sources said Korean companies will be invited to invest in Kuwait in an experimental phase during which the private sector will be given 10 schools to rebuild and run for 20 years.

By A Saleh