The International Indian School Dammam (IISD) will pay the entire SR9,500 annual Ajeer fee for each teacher, according to an announcement made on Tuesday by the outgoing chairman of the school managing committee.

As per the directives of the Labor Department all private and community schools which were not following the Nitaqat Saudization program were required to pay a fee of SR9,500 per year for each teacher or employee who was not under their sponsorship.

The Ajeer program is designed to regulate and document temporary foreign employees working for those who are not their sponsors.

Although the program was announced in 2015, many schools were delaying payment until the authorities set April 1 as the deadline to pay the Ajeer fee.

The schools or organizations that follow Nitaqat program for Saudization are levied only SR1,500 per year for each expat teacher or employee who is not under their sponsorship.

The Indian community school in Dammam was among the worst affected as it has more than 700 female teachers who are not under its sponsorship.

As a result of the increased Ajeer fee, most international schools have decided to hike tuition fees.

IISD has also hiked its establishment levy that is charged once at the time of admission from SR1,000 to SR1,500. It also scrapped the fee concession given to the second child of a parent.

The total cost due to the Ajeer fee was estimated at SR6.7 million which was too high for the school budget. But we feared a mass resignation of teachers if we imposed the fee on them, said ISSD managing committee chairman Dr. Zainul Abidin.

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