KUWAIT: A committee formed by the Ministry of Education (MoE) to determine tuition fees at American and British schools suggested authorizing school owners to set their own fees according to demand and supply principles, and told parents complaining about inflated fees to send their children to public schools.

Speaking after a meeting with the school owners’ union, MoE undersecretary Dr Haitham Al-Athari announced increasing tuition fees at American and British private schools by five percent for students already registered with them starting from the beginning of the next school year (2016-2017). Athari added that new students would be subjected to new contracts in which tuition fees would be negotiable between schools and parents.

“Parents of new students will be committed to contract conditions during their years of study from grades one to twelve, provided all conditions are clearly defined, legible, binding and fully comprehended by parents,” Athari explained noting that there would be no limit to maximum fees and that the services provided by private schools were subject to demand and supply principles. He added that the ministry would supervise private school-parent relations and that new contract forms would highlight the fees in red. Athari added that the contracts would be binding throughout the schooling years during which fees would not be increased. “All disputes related to those contracts will be resolved by the ministry or a court of law”, he added. Speaking about students already registered in those schools, Athari said that they would be subject to a five percent annual fee increase.

Scholarships unaffected

In other news, and at a time when the government is after putting His Highness the Amir’s instructions to rationalize and cut expenses and stop waste, Education Minister Dr Bader Al-Essa reassured students applying for scholarships abroad that scholarships would not be reduced. “Reducing the number of scholarships will only happen once the new Sabah Al-Salem University joins service, that is four years from now,” Essa underlined, noting that scholarships would be reduced by 50 percent or more according to local universities’ capacities then. - Al-Rai, Al-Jarida