Despite buying them for large sums of money, the Houthi militia in Ibb forces private school students to hand in the first semester curricula

Parents of students complained that a number of private school administrations in Ibb Governorate (central Yemen) are forcing students to hand in their first semester curricula, despite having purchased them for large sums of money.

Parents told "Yemeni Youth Net" that the principals of a number of private schools in Ibb forcibly withdrew the textbooks for the first semester from their children, and prevented them from receiving the books for the second semester until they received the books for the first semester.

They added that the school administrations justified this by saying that the leadership of the Houthi-controlled Education Office in the governorate had obliged them to hand over those curricula to it.

Parents explained that this measure deprived them of the benefit of books for which they had paid large sums in advance, as they had hoped to hand them over to their other children next year.

Meanwhile, educational sources said that the process of withdrawing curricula from private schools is supervised by Houthi leaders who seek to make financial profit from it. These leaders were accused of selling clean books to street vendors, while selling torn books to spice and sweets shops.

The sources indicated that these leaders had imposed on some private schools to pay percentages of the value of the curricula they sell to students, in addition to the fees that these schools pay to the relevant authorities in the education office affiliated with the militia.