‘Cancel developing classes’

KUWAIT CITY, Sept 9: The Kuwait Teachers Society affirmed its rejection of the developing classes specified for students of elementary stage with poor performance, urging Ministry of Education to cancel them, reports AlAnba daily.

Head of the society Mute’e Al-Ajmi said the teachers were not consulted before these sessions were allotted.

He explained that the society asked Minister of Education and Higher Education Dr Mohammad Al-Fares to cancel the developing classes, as they increase the load on both the teachers and the students. The minister said he asked the Public Education Sector for a detailed report about the issue but did not receive a response yet.

Meanwhile, a number of managers of primary schools called for the cancellation of the developing classes specified by the ministry for students with poor academic performance, insisting that the project was proven to have failed in meeting the targets.

They stressed that the developing classes have many negative aspects including wastage of time of regular classes, which in turn disturb the plan of curricula.

The managers said it is not fair to make the heads of departments responsible for teaching the developing classes as this will increase the load on them.

They reiterated that the classes have negative impact on poorly-performing students as they may feel inferior to their classmates.

State Audit Bureau (SAB) has requested the Ministry of Education to study the phenomenon of Kuwaiti teachers in their various academic and technical specialties transferring from teaching field to administration, reports AlQabas daily. The audit bureau insists the study should be given priority in order to determine the rationale behind teachers moving to administration so as to set suitable solutions in that regard.

Addressing the ministry, SAB indicated the ministry’s approval of teachers request to leave the teaching field for administrative jobs will cause the drain of academic staff from the teaching field and negatively affect the course of education in the country, which is to provide enough manpower for certain subjects — given that legislators have barred the recruitment of graduates from Basic Education College and Faculty of Education that specialize in teaching. It reiterated the need to remedy the situation by finding the cause, while adhering to Civil Service Council’s Decision No. 5/1997.