MP Oudah Al-Rowaei

KUWAIT: Chairman of the parliament’s educational affairs committee MP Oudah Al-Rowaei stressed yesterday that the committee had not recommended any tuition fee increases for private schools. Meanwhile, Minister of Education Dr Bader Al-Essa issued a decision yesterday, officially increasing fees collected by private schools by three percent for the school year 2016-2017 and by another three percent for the following year (2017-2018).

The increases would be then be reconsidered and reviewed. Essa also made a decision to allow grandchildren of retired or serving bedoons working for the army or the police to be accepted in public schools starting from 2016-2017.

In a different concern, Essa said the delay in the Shadadiya university project was due to several changes and called for shifting the responsibility of the project to the Ministry of Public Works (MPW), because the university did not have enough technical staff to supervise and follow up the construction process.

Responding to a question about scholarships, Essa denied they were reduced this year, and stressed that the numbers are still the same - 6,000 foreign and 4,000 local scholarships.

In other news, Kuwait University employees syndicate expressed criticized the ‘sudden decision’ in issuing the government universities law separating Kuwait University from the new Sabah Al- Salem University in Shadadiya.

In this regard, syndicate chairman Haitham Al-Hajri said that the decision was shocking to all employees, especially those who had supervised some of the construction works at the new project and dreamt of working there. Hajri called for reconsidering the government universities bill while it was still at the Cabinet and before submitting it to the parliament

By A Saleh