AMMAN - Private schools are no longer considered a “luxury”, but a basic need in light of the “deteriorating” conditions of public schools, according to parents who gathered on Saturday to protest against the hike in private schools fees.

Participants in the protest, organised by the National Campaign for Defending Students’ Rights (Thabahtoona) in front of the Prime Ministry, criticised the government’s reluctance to curb the “growing” influence of private school owners.

“Does the government want us to beg for money in order for us to put our children in school?” wondered one father, who carried a placard reading: “We save the country JD150 million a year and it should take care of us.”

Omar Hiari, whose three children are in a private school, said it raised its fees by at least 30 per cent during the past three years, noting that no clear reasons were given to parents for the increase.

“We just have to pay and stay silent,” he indicated.

Isis Abbadi agreed, noting that she has to pay JD2,250 for her first-grade daughter next year.

“We don’t mind enrolling our children in public schools if they can provide us with good education and supervision, in addition to clean bathrooms and heated classes,” she told The Jordan Times.

Despite opting for private schools for their children, the parents noted that the quality of education in these institutions is becoming “poor”.

“The same teacher teaches my son social science, mathematics and computer studies,” said Munther Hattab, stressing that the rise in school fees is not reflected in the salaries of teachers.

Thabahtoona coordinator Fakher Daas said the protest was designed to put an end to the Ministry of Education’s bias towards owners of private schools, underlining that education should not turn into a trade.

“Until when will private schools owners be above the law?” he asked, stressing that the campaign will continue to hold peaceful protests until the government intervenes and ends their “greediness”.

“Even physicians have to abide by a list of charges,” Daas stressed, adding that private schools raised fees when fuel prices increased and did not lower them when they dropped.

Private School Owners Association President Monther Sourani told The Jordan Times in a previous interview that private schools used to have an educational orientation but the government turned them into “profitable businesses”.

“The government treats us exactly as if we were investors and not education providers,” he noted, adding that the association pleaded many times to exclude schools from the Landlords and Tenants Law to enable them to lower the fees.

“The government should exempt everything that has to do with education from sales and income tax, even school buses should be exempted from customs duties,” Sourani said, but added that most schools charge “reasonable” fees that parents can afford.

Rajai Halaseh, one of the protesting parents, called on the government to play a supervisory role over private schools to ease the burden of the high cost of living on parents.

“The problem is that owners of these schools have influence and thus cannot be hold accountable,” he claimed.

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