Court orders Education Ministry to promote student to Grade 8 after online technical glitch.
Dubai: A Kuwaiti court has overturned an Education Ministry decision that caused a middle-school student to fail and ordered that she be declared successful and promoted to eighth grade after a technical glitch prevented her from accessing online classes.
The dispute arose during the second semester, when Kuwait’s Education Ministry was conducting classes remotely through Microsoft Teams under exceptional circumstances.
While other students attended virtual classes, the student was unable to access the platform for more than two months due to a technical fault that remained unresolved until April.
The student and her family challenged the decision in court. Her lawyer argued that once the technical issue was resolved, she completed and submitted all required assignments and other academic work.
He told the court that the exceptional circumstances at the time had prevented the student from reporting the problem or explaining the situation to school administrators while it was ongoing.
Despite evidence that the technical failure was beyond the student’s control, the Education Ministry recorded her absence as unjustified and rated her academic performance as “poor”, resulting in her failing the school year.
After reviewing the circumstances and evidence concerning the technical problem, Kuwait’s Administrative Court annulled the ministry’s decision, including the failing result and poor academic assessment.
The court ordered the ministry to recognise that the student had successfully completed the academic year and promote her to the eighth grade.
The ruling effectively spares the student from repeating an entire school year because of a prolonged technical issue that prevented her from accessing the remote-learning platform.
