Terror Teachers Target Rural Schools
Raid Qusti & Munif Al-Safoghi, Arab News

RIYADH, 11 July 2005 — As more details emerge about the suspects on the Ministry of Interior’s new terror list, it is clear that radical groups have systematically been targeting poor rural areas and infiltrating recruiters into public schools in the guise of teachers who set up camps using brainwashing techniques and perverting the messages of the Qur’an to create terrorists.

As the Saudi security forces analyze the profile of terrorists within the country, they’re learning a few new facts. They’re finding intentional use of weaknesses within the educational system to recruit young men into terror.

In Saudi Arabia, as elsewhere, it’s hard to recruit good teachers for rural schools. In the US, for instance, the government will waive payment of student loans for those those who agree to teach in designated remote areas. Sometimes rural towns will agree to pay off the loans in return for a two- or three-year contract to teach there.

Saudi teachers, who haven’t really received a pay raise in 20 years, aren’t thrilled with rural assignment by the state education system. So if someone is volunteering for such an assignment, eyes may wink at less than sterling qualifications. But that willingness to cut corners has proved to be dangerous as recruiters are found to be taking the jobs and getting to Saudis when they’re really young, then recruiting them after high school.

This Arab News article discusses some of the techniques used to draw young Saudis onto the wrong side of the war on terror. It’s worth reading the whole thing.

What’s missing from the article, though, are any suggestions of how to fix the problem, other than increased scrutiny. Paying bonuses for rural assignments, giving extra professional credit to those who fill them, making them mandatory for all new teachers… any of these could help.