Changes Underfoot

SEC Alters Rules For School Operators

When Independent Schools re-open after the summer break,

many will have undergone changes in management resulting from the Supreme Education Council’s recent decisions to alter rules governing the schools’ private operators.

The school operators are the outside managers brought in to run Independent Schools as part of Qatar’s three-year-old educational reform program. Until now, new operators would set up a limited liability company, or LLC, to manage an Independent School. The operator was not required to make running a school his full-time job, and in fact many have had other occupations, delegating the day-to-day functioning of the schools to principals. The LLCs could be owned by multiple partners, and many were owned by small groups of two or three individuals.

All that is changing. Under the new rules, schools will be run by a single individual who must be Qatari and have a professional background in education. The individual will act as a principal as well as operator. Operators will set up non-profit educational institutes -- rather than LLCs -- and receive a regular salary based on a sliding scale since they will be required to work full-time at the school.

The modifications have proven controversial among many Independent School operators, who feel they unfairly change the basic rules of the game midway through. In a variety of forums, both public and private, operators have complained about the lack of prior discussion with them. Operators object to the portrayal of them as irresponsible profit-seekers, saying that reported problems with a very small minority of operators does not justify punishing the majority. Some operators feel the changes betray their early faith in the system, and their dedicated efforts to create good schools.

But officials involved in the decision-making process said the SEC thought it was particularly important that schools be run by someone devoting his full attention to the project. They also felt it was important to eliminate any possible incentive to maximize profits by holding back on investing in the school or cutting corners on education.

The changes are part of efforts to perfect the system, they say.

“We all learn as we travel down this road,” said one official. “Issues come up at the school level, in the Institutes, in the SEC itself. So we study what is happening and we adjust our policies.”

To put the changes into place, the SEC is signing new contracts with all Independent School operators, which essentially fall into two groups: the 33 schools that began functioning during the first two years of reform, and the new batch of schools that are scheduled to open in the fall.

SEC officials went school-by-school to determine whether current or planned operators, or principals or vice principals, could fit the new profile. About half of the 33 Independent Schools already functioning will keep the same operators. Of the remaining schools, about half of those will be run by a principal or assistant principal who was already at the school; fewer than 10 schools required entirely new people to be brought in. Most importantly, none will be closed down.

“All 33 schools will remain as Independent Schools,” said Josiha Haig, head of the SEC’s Independent School Office.

The situation was different for operators of new schools that had planned to be opened in the fall. Under current estimates, there will be 13 new Independent Schools that debut in the 2006-2007 academic year, down from the 21 originally given SEC approval.

Mr. Haig said the Education Institute is providing as much support as needed at each of the schools to guarantee that the quality of education does not suffer. That can mean making available to the school educational consultants, school advisors, professional development specialists or curriculum standards experts. “This is all designed so that the transition will be as smooth as possible,” said Mr. Haig.

Nafez Alyan, director of the SEC´s Finance Office, said that while the changes will alter the management of many of the schools, they don’t undermine the values behind the reform drive: schools’ autonomy to act, the accountability of management, the variety in types of schools, and the parental right to choose schools. “This is part of the continuous process to create a better system,” he said.