Not the best idea

The Ministry of Education wants to “grade” private schools on the basis of school environment, resources, teaching staff and performance level.

There is hardly a precedent in the world where governments undertake to classify schools, or even universities, on any basis, much less the ambiguous criteria being suggested by the ministry.

Getting into this kind of exercise could easily put the government at risk of litigation, not to mention confuse parents and students alike.

One wonders who is going to judge the “learning environment” in private schools, measure their resources and assess the quality of their teaching staff.

While ministry inspectors could determine partial compliance with these criteria, the ultimate arbiters are the students themselves and their parents.

Results speak for themselves and are often the only criterion for choosing this or that school.

Allowing government bureaucrats to influence or interfere in this business may not be the best idea.

It should be left to the parents to decide which private schools their children attend, an issue that should not preoccupy the Ministry of Education.

There are more crucial things that should fall under this establishment’s care and worry: situation of public schools, professional preparedness of teachers there and their salaries, crowdedness in classes, sanitation and heating, curriculum, conditions under which Tawjihi exams are held and myriad other issues that the ministry has the mandate to and can help address.

Private schools’ ratings are better left in the care of the families of children attending them. They rarely fail to get it right.