Kuwait to end expat teachers’ service

Cairo: Kuwait plans to terminate the service of an unspecified number of foreign teachers by the end of the current school year’s tests as part of a policy replacing expatriates with citizens, a government minister has disclosed.

“After examinations of the current school year, the services of a number of non-Kuwaiti teachers will be terminated at all stages of public and private education in specialities where there are large numbers of national replacements,” Kuwaiti Minister of Education Hamad Al Adwani said.

He was quoted by Al Rai newspaper as saying that the Education Ministry is going ahead with the policy of employing Kuwaitis in educational and administrative jobs.

Part of the policy is based on terminating services of foreign teachers in specialities where there are “suitable” numbers of Kuwaiti replacements.

“This aims at enabling Kuwaiti teachers to do these jobs, thus helping unemployment rates to go down and provide larger numbers of work opportunities for the Kuwaiti citizens,” he added.

In recent years, Kuwait has stepped up efforts to create jobs for its citizens and replacing foreign employees as part of policy dubbed “Kuwaitisation”.

Foreigners make up nearly 3.4 million of Kuwait’s overall population of 4.6 million.

In recent months, there have been increasing calls in Kuwait for curbing foreigners’ employment alongside accusations that migrant workers have strained the country’s infrastructure facilities amid economic repercussions from the COVID-19 pandemic.