Opinions

This week, I will dedicate this modest space to a letter sent to me by one of the readers, and they have insisted that I publish it within the allocated space for my articles. Since the letter is relevant, I will dedicate the entire space to it. The letter reads as follows:

Professor Abdulaziz, I hope this letter finds a place for publication in your esteemed newspaper, within your regular article. This letter is addressed to the Honorable Lulu Al-Khater, Minister of Education and Higher Education, whom we have clearly seen making a significant impact during her short tenure in this position. As parents, we are in constant contact with the Ministry and schools.

&I was personally delighted by her decision to allow parents to access their children's certificates, regardless of whether there were outstanding fees owed to the ministry. This is a wonderful decision, and we, as parents, have been eagerly awaiting it.

Previously, we were unable to access our children's school certificates until we had paid the full fees. The system also did not allow us to view grades or certificates unless we had completely cleared all outstanding fees, including transportation and book fees.

&This led to many problems for some students and their parents, and I am referring to my personal experience and what I faced with my children in schools. I have 12 children, and some were in their first year of high school, on the verge of choosing a track – either scientific or humanities. I was unable to assess their abilities in these subjects until the appropriate track was chosen. As a result, they chose the wrong track. One child chose the scientific track to fulfill the parents' desire to study a specific major, but in the following year, it became clear that the student was weak in the scientific subjects, and there was no way to reverse the decision. In the third year of high school, the child failed, and he also failed in the second attempt. The result was that he had to repeat the year, and he finally graduated from high school with difficulty after a lot of effort and intensive study. The same thing happened with his sister, who went through the same experience due to her lack of knowledge of her academic abilities in the subjects.

Before that, my older brother had delayed enrolling in university after graduating from high school because we couldn't obtain his certificate until we paid the full fees or provided the documents and receipts proving that the fees had been paid in full. However, I had lost some of those receipts, as I had paid the full fees to receive a copy of the certificate. To this day, I have not received the original certificate from the school, despite my brother being in his third year of university and having not received many of his certificates from previous stages of his studies.

And these are some of the problems I, as a parent, have faced, and I believe many other parents have faced as well. The issue is that requiring parents to know their children's grades or to withhold enrollment in private schools, and linking the results to payment as a prerequisite, does not serve the educational process at all. It was possible to provide grades without issuing certificates, or to provide draft certificates until the full fees were paid, so that students would not be disrupted or choose academic paths based on guesswork without knowing their actual educational levels.

The decision by Minister Luluha Al-Khater, Minister of Education and Higher Education, was like a balm that healed our wounds and was the most beautiful gift of this academic year. It also enabled parents facing various circumstances to pay tuition fees, allowing them to know their children's grades and obtain draft certificates, which allows them to enroll their children in universities at the appropriate time. This is a wonderful and appreciated decision.