By Beatrice Thomas

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Posted inEducation, Education, GCC, Industries

Saudi sets up school fees complaint hotline

Comes days after Education Ministry warns schools not to set fees outside of approved limits

By Beatrice Thomas
Students line-up as they ente their classroom on the first day of the academic year for public schools in Dubai on September 27, 2009. Many students were still absent as parents remain reluctant to send their children to school from fear of swine flu. (Karim Sahib/AFP/Getty Images)
Students line-up as they ente their classroom on the first day of the academic year for public schools in Dubai on September 27, 2009. Many students were still absent as parents remain reluctant to send their children to school from fear of swine flu. (Karim Sahib/AFP/Getty Images)

Saudi education authorities have launched a complaint hotline for parents over unfair school tuition fee hikes, it was reported.

Days after warning private and international schools about potential action if they increased fees without permission, the Ministry of Education said it had approved a standard application form for parents to lodge their complaints, Saudi Gazette reported.

It said complaints, which can be lodged online as well as department offices, could be made when schools hiked tuition fees outside of levels approved by the ministry, which will be published at education department sites.

In a statement the department said each complaint would be examined by the respective branch committees.

In September 2013, a total of 932 private schools across the kingdom increased fees by up to 20 percent after the ministry approved a request for the hike, the Gazette reported.

Mohammed Eid Al Otaibi, director of private and international schools at the ministry, said then that about half of the kingdom’s 3,940 private schools asked to increase their tuition fees but the ministry approved only 21 percent of the requests.

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