Kuwait
Foreigners make up nearly 3.4 million of Kuwait’s total population of 4.6 million. Image Credit: Gulf News archive

Cairo: Foreign schoolteachers, social workers and physical education instructors are excluded from replacement by Kuwaitis in this academic year, according to a local newspaper.

Kuwait’s Civil Service Commission, the state employment agency, has addressed the country’s Education Ministry that jobs of teaching, social services, physical education instruction as well as school development and follow-up are outside the scope of the country’s policy replacing foreign employees with Kuwaitis in the government jobs, Al Qabas reported.

However, the agency has requested the ministry to terminate the services of 67 non-Kuwaiti administrative employees by the end of the current school year, the paper said.

Should the commission receive no remarks from the ministry over the requested replacements in 15 days at most, the Finance Ministry would be asked to take the necessary procedures for freezing those foreign employees, the report said.

The commission has also underscored the importance of prioritising employment at the Education Ministry for Kuwaitis, then children of Kuwaiti women married to foreigners, followed by Gulf nationals, the stateless Bedoon job seekers and Arab citizens.

has stepped up efforts to create jobs for its citizens and set restrictions on employing foreigners as part of a policy dubbed “Kuwaitisation”.

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

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