Who's driving this thing? Saudi Arabia can't figure out how to get female teachers to work

Saudi women teachers are suffering daily from many difficulties to get to their places of work, a situation which requires a quick solution from the government.

Journalist Abdullah Al-Kaied said: “The establishment of housing complexes for expatriate female teachers would not solve the problem, as it is not logical to build a residential complex in each area or village, and force them to leave their houses to live in cities and provinces.”

He said that there is an urgent need to find solutions to the problem through re-evaluating existing schools for girls and boys in each village by examining each geographical area, and allocating a number of schools to serve large population areas instead of the current illogical school distribution.

Al-Kaied said that the problem lies in the movement of teachers and students, and can be solved through providing a quick and safe transportation system as in most developed countries, adding that the opening of the railway linking cities and regions of the Kingdom might be a partial and reasonable solution.

In this aspect, some female teachers spoke about their daily sufferings, demanding that the government solve the problems they face.

Fatimah Al-Ghamdi, an expatriate teacher, said: “I have experienced great difficulty in finding suitable accommodations close to my workplace. After I rented a house, I was sent to work in another village, where I faced new problems due to the lack of appropriate transportation between villages.”

Al-Ghamdi said that she was forced to pay the rent even in her absence to avoid repeating the same problem again, calling for real activation of the decision to reduce working days, not applying assignment decisions on expatriate teachers, as well as achieving equality among all teachers by determining the years of separation to be at least two years for all.

On high rental prices, Sarah Al-Aqili, who recently moved to the province of Taima, said that she has encountered great difficulty in finding adequate housing in Al-Assafia village, indicating that the high rents of furnished apartments are unjustified

Manal Salem said: “One of the greatest troubles and hardships facing village teachers is to find adequate housing, as we start searching before the beginning of the school year. Even though the availability of housing is one of the solutions … the Ministry of Education ignores the problem, and we are forced either to rent houses in the area, moving long distances daily, or living in those poor and old homes.