By Majd Othman

KUWAIT: As the Ministry of Education continues to confront the issue of a shortage of cleaners in public schools, Assistant Undersecretary of the Ministry of Education for Administrative Affairs and Development Rajaa Bouarki told Kuwait Times the Ministry has set an alternative backup plan for schools facing a shortage, which includes hiring local cleaning companies to do the cleaning work during the evening period. “Due to the difficulty of male cleaners entering girls’ schools during the morning working hours, we provided a night shift, as the ministry understands the large areas of public schools cannot be covered and cleaned by the small number of female workers provided in the morning shift,” she said.

“Currently, we have covered most of the educational areas with workers, as we have stability now in Jahra and Farwaniya areas and the contracted company is committed in doing their work, while the cleaning company will start work in Hawally educational area by October 1, ”Bouarki pointed out. “Some educational areas suffered from cleaning companies that did not comply with our contracts and were delayed in providing services, such as in Mubarak Al-Kabeer area.

So the ministry took all legal measures against them according to contractual terms. It is the same for Ahmadi and Capital areas, where contracts were completely withdrawn and assigned to local companies,” she said. Regarding the reason behind this shortage, Bouarki said the ministry has launched tenders for cleaners since 2020. “The documentary cycle between regulatory authorities takes time, although the financial sector in the ministry, as the authorized authority, signed a set of contracts with companies.

But according to the conditions, there is a 90-day processing period for the company to bring in workers from abroad. At the same time, there were political situations in some countries such as Sri Lanka that did not help in recruiting workers. India has a very long recruitment cycle as well. Therefore, the companies contracted with are racing against time to meet the numbers of cleaners,” she explained.

On other hand, Bouarki pointed out the number of schools in Kuwait has increased lately. ”We must take into account that Kuwait’s schools have exceeded 900, which is a significant number compared to Kuwait’s area, not to mention the new schools opened in the Capital and Jaber Al-Ahmad, and new schools in Ahmadi governorate, such as in Khairan and Wafra residential areas. Also, six new schools opened in Jleeb this year,” she said, stressing the ministry is promising to cover all the shortages at all schools by the beginning of the academic year. According to reports, the ministry of education in Kuwait has faced since April a new issue regarding cleaning workers, as financial controllers in the ministry refused to pay any dues to the companies before they paid the fines incurred by them during the pandemic, which contributed to the rising shortages of workers at public schools.