Public schools suffer from shortage of Kuwaiti ‘laboratory technicians’
KUWAIT CITY, Sept 15: According to the Public Education Sector of the Ministry of Education, public schools are suffering from a shortage of school laboratory technicians, especially in light of the reluctance of Kuwaitis to take up these positions and their low numbers currently in this job. This has rendered the sector to have reservations about implementing Kuwaitization policy for such important jobs, reports Al-Qabas daily.
In an official letter to the Undersecretary for Administrative Affairs, the Assistant Undersecretary for Public Education Affairs Osama Al-Sultan said the sector had previously prepared a proposal for the ministry’s undersecretary, urging on applying Kuwaitization process only on low-performing people who hold these positions, and affirming the ministry’s keenness to continue opening new schools in the southern regions of the country, which means there is a need for staff in these rare specialties.
Earlier, the Public Education Sector had stressed the need to postpone the implementation of the Kuwaitization project until the availability of national elements in this field in which the ministry suffers from a shortage in the number of cadres, including science assistants. This is aimed not to disrupt the pace of work in the school laboratories, while only implementing Kuwaitization in some regions until the budget allows for the replacement of mid-performers and below.
In consideration of the importance given by Al-Sultan to continuing coordination with the Civil Service Commission and the Public Authority for Applied Education and Training (PAAET) to meet the ministry’s need for Kuwaiti technicians in science labs of schools, PAAET should adopt specific programs to qualify high school Kuwaiti graduates of both genders to work in the position of science lab technicians, given the urgent need of the Ministry of Education for such labor force.