Manama: A Saudi school courier is to receive SR200,000 (Dh 195,700) from the education ministry after he was forced to clean classrooms and bathrooms for 11 years.
The administrative court in Hael in northern Saudi Arabia said that the cleaning tasks were not part of the man’s professional duties and that he deserved to receive a financial compensation of SR100 for every day he cleaned the school facilities.
The courier had been asked orally by a school administrator to tidy up the classrooms and bathrooms in addition to his duty and he complied for 11 years, before deciding to take the matter to the court, local daily Makkah reported.
The defence team for the ministry rejected the courier’s claim, saying there was no evidence to support it.
However, the courier brought two teachers who testified that he had been asked orally to do the extra tasks and that the school principal had promised to give him SR5,000 as a bonus. But, the courier did not receive anything, he told the court during the hearings.
Upon announcing the verdict, the judge said that the courier had been unduly asked to perform the extra tasks and that he deserved a financial compensation that was computed on an average of SR100 per day.
However, the education ministry is now challenging the court decision, arguing that it was not responsible for an individual mistake by the school’s principal and for the courier’s unawareness about the tasks for which he had been hired.
The ministry said that it would be forced to pay large amounts of money for mistakes that it did not make.
