Manama: Education authorities in Kuwait have banned access of politicians or activists to schools without their permission.
“Allowing them without the proper approval from the concerned education district is a violation of the rules that warrants legal action,” Ruqayya Husain, the head of Al Jahra education district, has said.
The official stressed that the focus of student activities should help promote educational goals.
“We must make sure that no politics are involved in the educational process and that politicians are not brought into it,” she said, quoted by local Arabic daily Al Jareeda on Thursday. “We need to confine the student activities to educators and to ensure that schools are not used for political, sectarian or tribal purposes.”
All schools are required to follow the ministry line on their activities and to help provide a positive learning setting where only the ideas endorsed by the ministry are allowed, Ruqayya said.
Kuwait has been rocked by bitter standoffs involving politicians and religious and social figures on the political, constitutional, social and economic situation of the country amid sharp differences over the nation’s orientation for the future.
Several people from the education sector have called for measures to ensure that schools are not involved in the troubling social and political tensions with their ominous cultural and social status overtones, and that students are not used to promote or defeat ideologies.
Islamists from the opposition have often made statements highlighting the role of young people in heralding and making changes in the country’s political landscape and have hoped to see them take part in the public rallies held to put pressure on the cabinet to revoke referring the controversial 2006 electoral law to the Constitutional Court.
The government in August said that it wanted the country’s highest court to address legal loopholes that could be used to challenge the results of any national elections and to ensure a fair representation of the voters in parliament.
However, the opposition, made up mainly of lawmakers whose terms were abruptly ended less than four months after they were elected after the parliament was dissolved by the Constitutional Court, said that the government simply wanted to reduce its growing powers and pledged to resist moves to amend the electoral law.
The court is expected to issue its verdict on September 25, hours after the opposition, emboldened by its successful pressure in November when it forced the resignation of the government and eventually the dissolution of the 2009 parliament, holds its third rally.
