KUWAIT: Female cleaners at Jahra schools yesterday went on strike after a one-week grace they had given to get two months of delayed salaries expired without any payment. Commenting on the strike, director of a girls school said that the cleaners had been planning the strike for days and that the school administration had tried to report the matter to concerned officials, but their attempts were in vain.

Separately, the Ministry of Education (MoE) stressed the need that all female expatriate teachers update the information related to rent allowance and submit the needed documents - be they married or single. This came in a directive circulated to all educational areas urging the teachers to provide the new information to their respective educational zones. Meanwhile, MoE is expected to begin recruiting expat teachers in subjects where citizens are rare within a few days, added informed educational sources, noting that interviews of new applicants will start on Feb 17.

In another educational concern, MoE decided allowing Kuwaiti students to register their names at public schools at any time throughout the school year, said informed sources, noting that the new instructions came in a directive issued by MoE's acting undersecretary Fahd Al-Ghaiss. Notably, according to the annual MoE calendar, the last day to register primary school pupils was Sept 30, and transferring students from private to public schools had been limited to two weeks after the commencement of the school year.

In other news, the Ministry of Social Affairs' acting undersecretary Hana Al-Hajri said that as part of its sustainable development plan, the ministry is devoted to serving various sections of the society. "We are working on empowering women through the productive families project as a means to enroll them in the local labor market," she explained. Hajri added that the ministry monthly pays around KD 22 million in the form of social aid to 49,000 families.

By A Saleh