Ministry of Education Responds to Aden Security Director’s Statements Regarding Minister’s Travel
Yemen Monitor / Newsroom:
The Ministry of Education, represented by the General Directorate of Educational Information and Publishing, expressed its surprise at the statements made by the Director of Security for Aden Governorate, Major General Mutahar Al-Shuaibi, which it considered a personal attack on the Minister of Education.
In an official statement, the ministry clarified that Al-Shuaibi’s remarks regarding the Minister’s travel to the Egyptian capital, Cairo, “weekly or every two weeks,” are completely unfounded. It affirmed that the Minister has not left the country for over a year and is currently present within the country with his family, carrying out his duties daily from the ministry’s headquarters.
The statement added that the recent statements lack accuracy and constitute a departure from the legal and institutional norms governing the performance of officials. It stressed that the evaluation of ministers, undersecretaries, and ambassadors falls within the mandate of specialized and higher authorities, and is not the responsibility of security leaders.
The ministry considered the statements from the Aden Security Director as a form of incitement and political and personal targeting of the Minister, whom it described as a “national figure from Hadramout.” It asserted that such statements do not serve the efforts of rapprochement between national forces, but rather contribute to exacerbating the situation.
The ministry emphasized holding Aden’s Security Directorate fully responsible should the Minister face any future targeting as a result of this inflammatory discourse. At the same time, it affirmed that the Ministry of Education is responsible for the progress of the educational process in various governorates and continues to perform its duties despite security, political, and economic challenges.
The Director of Aden Security had stated, during his participation in an event for the International Day Against Drug Abuse, that “education is halted, and the Minister of Education is constantly traveling to Cairo, staying in Aden for a week then taking his bags and going to Cairo.”
He also stressed that next year, “public schools will be obliged to open their doors,” in reference to what he described as the “phenomenon of keeping students ignorant.”
It’s worth noting that the Southern Teachers’ Syndicate carried out a strike at the end of the first semester of last year in Aden Governorate, protesting delayed salary payments and demanding improved conditions for teachers. This led to the suspension of the educational process only in public schools in Aden, while studies continued in the rest of the governorates.
