Monday, May 26, 2008

Expats Thinking About a Contract in Saudi?

If you have kids, do some research on recent policy changes. SaudiJeans reports that the Saudi Ministry of Education has declared that Saudis will no longer be granted permission to attend international schools and that international students will have to attend the school corresponding to their nationality. I did not find a news story on the decision itself, but SaudiJeans linked a letter published on the Arab News website from a mother objecting to the decision.

If the decision is not recognized as the train wreck that it is and rescinded, I imagine the international school system in Saudi will be quite a mess over the next few years if it is anything like Oman where students are jumbled up according to their educational preferences more than nationality.

In the post, there is a picture of the Minister of Education, the head of the notoriously religiously conservative education ministry. He does not wear the ghutra, the black cord that the majority of Gulf Arabs wear to keep the shemagh (the scarf) in place. My understanding is that this is a statement: conservative Muslims of a certain milieu don't wear the ghutra because only God wears a crown. The Vice and Virtue "Police" also don't wear ghutras.

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