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WEEKLY NEWSLETTER
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Saudi Arabia
Index
Chemistry class, Al Mubarraz School, Eastern Province
Courtesy Aramco World
Recess at a girls's school
Courtesy Saudi Aramco
Education has been a primary goal of government in Najd since
the late eighteenth century, when the Wahhabi movement encouraged
the spread of Islamic education for all Muslim believers. Because
the purpose of Islamic education was to ensure that the believer
would understand God's laws and live his or her life in
accordance with them, classes for reading and memorizing the
Quran along with selections from the hadith were sponsored in
towns and villages throughout the peninsula. At the most
elementary level, education took place in the kuttab, a
class of Quran recitation for children usually attached to a
mosque, or as a private tutorial held in the home under the
direction of a male or female professional Quran reader, which
was usually the case for girls. In the late nineteenth century,
nonreligious subjects were also taught under Ottoman rule in the
Hijaz and Al Ahsa Province, where kuttab schools
specializing in Quran memorization sometimes included arithmetic,
foreign language, and Arabic reading in the curriculum. Because
the purpose of basic religious learning was to know the contents
of holy scripture, the ability to read Arabic text was not a
priority, and illiteracy remained widespread in the peninsula. In
1970, in comparison to all countries in the Middle East and North
Africa, the literacy rate of 15 percent for men and 2 percent for
women in Saudi Arabia was lower only in Yemen and Afghanistan.
For this reason, the steep rise in literacy rates--by 1990 the
literacy rate for men had risen to 73 percent and that for women
to 48 percent--must be seen as an achievement.
Students who wished to pursue their studies beyond the
elementary level could attend an informal network of scholarly
lectures (halaqat) offering instruction in Islamic
jurisprudence, Arabic language, Quranic commentaries
(tafsir), hadith, literature, rhetoric, and sometimes
arithmetic and history. The most prestigious ulama in Arabia
received specialized training at Al Azhar mosque in Cairo, or in
Iraq. In Saudi Arabia, higher studies in religious scholarship
were formalized in 1945 with the establishment of the At Taif
School of Theology (Dar al Tawhid). In the early 1990s, there
were two university-level institutions for religious studies, the
Islamic University of Medina and the Imam Muhammad ibn Saud
Islamic University in Riyadh.
Since the 1920s, a small number of private institutions has
offered limited secular education for boys, but it was not until
1951 that an extensive program of publicly funded secondary
schools was initiated. In 1957 the first university not dedicated
to religious subjects, Riyadh University, subsequently renamed
King Saud University, was established. The Ministry of Education,
which administered public educational institutions for boys and
men, was set up in 1954. Publicly funded education for girls
began in 1960 under the inspiration of then Crown Prince Faisal
and his wife Iffat.
Initially, opening schools for girls met with strong
opposition in some parts of the kingdom, where nonreligious
education was viewed as useless, if not actually dangerous, for
girls. This attitude was reflected in the ratio of school-age
boys to girls in primary school enrollments: in 1960, 22 percent
of boys and 2 percent of girls were enrolled. Within a few years,
however, public perceptions of the value of education for girls
changed radically, and the general population became strongly
supportive. In 1981 enrollments were 81 percent of boys and 43
percent of girls. In 1989 the number of girls enrolled in the
public school system was close to the number of boys: almost 1.2
million girls out of a total of 2.6 million students, or 44
percent. School attendance was not compulsory for boys or girls
(see
table 2, Appendix.)
By 1989 Saudi Arabia had an education system with more than
14,000 education institutions, including seven universities and
eleven teacher-training colleges, in addition to schools for
vocational and technical training, special needs, and adult
literacy. The system was expanding so rapidly that in 1988-89
alone, 950 new schools were opened to accommodate 400,000 new
students. General education consisted of kindergarten, six years
of primary school, and three years each of intermediate and
secondary (high) school. All instruction, books, and health
services to students were provided free by the government, which
allocated nearly 20 percent of its expenditures, or US$36.3
billion, to human resources under the Fourth Development Plan,
1985-90. The Fifth Development Plan, 1990-95, proposed a total
expenditure of about US$37.6 billion.
Administratively, two organizations oversaw most education
institutions in the kingdom. The Ministry of Education supervised
the education of boys, special education programs for the
handicapped, adult education, and junior colleges for men. Girls'
education was administered by the Directorate General of Girls'
Education, an organization staffed by ulama, working in close
cooperation with the Ministry of Education. The directorate
general oversaw the general education of girls, kindergartens and
nurseries for both boys and girls, and women's literacy programs,
as well as colleges of education and junior colleges for girls.
The Ministry of Higher Education was the authority overseeing the
kingdom's colleges and universities.
Public education, at both the university and secondary-school
level, has never been fully separated from its Islamic roots. The
education policy of Saudi Arabia included among its objectives
the promotion of the "belief in the One God, Islam as the way of
life, and Muhammad as God's Messenger." At the elementary-school
level, an average of nine periods a week was devoted to religious
subjects and eight per week at the intermediate-school level.
This concentration on religious subjects was substantial when
compared with the time devoted to other subjects: nine periods
for Arabic language and twelve for geography, history,
mathematics, science, art, and physical education combined at the
elementary level; six for Arabic language and nineteen for all
other subjects at the intermediate level. At the secondary level,
the required periods of religious study were reduced, although an
option remained for a concentration in religious studies.
For women, the goal of education as stated in official policy
was ideologically tied to religion: "the purpose of educating a
girl is to bring her up in a proper Islamic way so as to perform
her duty in life, be an ideal and successful housewife and a good
mother, ready to do things which suit her nature such as
teaching, nursing and medical treatment." The policy also
recognized "women's right to obtain suitable education on equal
footing with men in light of Islamic laws." In practice,
educational options for girls at the precollege level were almost
identical to those for boys. One exception was that, at all
levels of precollege education, only boys took physical
education, and only girls took home economics.
Inequalities of opportunity existed in higher education that
stemmed from the religious and social imperative of gender
segregation. Gender segregation was required at all levels of
public education, but was also demanded in public areas and
businesses by religiously conservative groups as well as by
social convention. Because the social perception was that men
would put the knowledge and skills acquired to productive use,
fewer resources were dedicated to women's higher education than
to men's. This constraint was a source of concern to economic
planners and policy makers because training and hiring women
would not only help solve the difficulties of indigenizing the
work force, but would also help to satisfy the rising
expectations of the thousands of women graduating from secondary
schools, colleges, and universities.
The concern was compounded by the fact that women as a group
have excelled academically over males in secondary schools, and
the number of female graduates has outstripped the number of
males, even though the number of girls entering school was
considerably lower than the number of boys. The number of female
secondary level graduates has increased more than tenfold, from
1,674 in 1975 to 18,211 in 1988. Calculated as a combination of
the hours invested in those who drop out or repeat classes and
those who graduate, it took an average of eighteen pupil years to
produce a male graduate of general education, as opposed to
fifteen pupil years to produce a female graduate. Under
conditions existing in the early 1990s, the problem can only
become more acute because the Fifth Development Plan projected
45,000 female secondary school graduates in 1995 and only 38,000
male graduates.
This increase in women graduates has not been met by a
commensurate increase in higher education opportunities. Despite
substantial expansion of college and university programs for
women, they remained insufficient to serve the graduates who
sought admission. The Fifth Development Plan cited higher
education for women as a major issue to be addressed, and Saudi
press reports in 1992 indicated that there was discussion of
creating a women's university.
A major objective for education in the Fourth Development
Plan and the Fifth Development Plan has been to develop general
education to deal with technological changes and rapid
developments in social and economic fields, with the ultimate
goal of replacing a portion of Saudi Arabia's huge foreign labor
force (79 percent of the total in 1989) with indigenous workers.
In the late 1980s, a high rate of student dropouts and secondary
school failures precluded the realization of these goals. (In
1990 the ratios of the number of students at the primary,
intermediate, and secondary levels to the total number of
students stood at 69.6, 20.5, and 9.9 percent, respectively.) The
dropout problem was far more acute with boys than with girls. One
means of addressing the dropout problem was a program initiated
in 1985 called "developed secondary education," designed to
prepare students for university study as well as for practical
participation in the work force. In this program, the student was
allowed to select two-thirds of his or her study plan from
courses that had practical applications or genuine appeal to the
student's own interests and abilities. After completing a
required general program consisting of courses in religion,
mathematics, science, social studies, English, Arabic, and
computers, students elected a course of study in one of three
concentrations: Islamic studies and literature, administrative
science and humanities, or the natural sciences.
Another goal in both the Fourth Development Plan and the
Fifth Development Plan has been to indigenize the secondary
teacher corps. At the end of the 1980s, about 40 percent were
foreigners, mostly from other Arabic-speaking countries, and
almost half of that percentage were Egyptian. In the early 1980s,
there had been steep gains in the number of Saudis teaching at
all levels, especially at the elementary level. This gain
resulted from the increase during the 1970s of institutes for
training teachers and the greater material incentives for careers
in education, stipulated in a royal decree of 1982. Nonetheless,
training schools for teachers had trouble attracting candidates,
especially males; male enrollment declined slightly, whereas
female enrollment nearly tripled. In 1984 there were about 12,000
women enrolled in the seven female colleges of education located
in Riyadh, Jiddah, Mecca, Medina, Buraydah, Abha, and Tabuk. The
challenge of attracting Saudis to the teaching profession was
being met in the early 1990s by a plan to abolish the training
institutes for secondary teachers and shift the enrollment to
junior colleges. This move would allow graduates the opportunity
to complete a university education for a bachelor's degree and
thus draw more potential candidates to the teaching profession.
Government funding for higher education has been particularly
munificent. Between 1983 and 1989, the number of university
students increased from approximately 58,000 to about 113,000, a
95 percent increase. Equally dramatic was the increase in the
number of women students at the university level: from 20,300 to
47,000 during the same period, or a 132 percent increase. In 1989
the number of graduates from all of the kingdom's colleges and
universities was almost the same for men and women: about 7,000
each.
The new campus of King Saud University in Riyadh, built in
the early 1980s, was designed to accommodate 25,000 male
students; the original university buildings in central Riyadh
were converted into a campus for the women's branch of the
university. King Saud University included colleges of
administrative sciences, agriculture, arts, dentistry, education,
engineering, medical sciences, medicine, pharmacy, and science.
Of these, the only course of study that excluded women was
engineering, on the premise that a profession in engineering
would be impossible to pursue in the context of sex-segregation
practices. In the early 1990s, the university offered
postgraduate studies in sixty-one specializations, and doctorates
in Arabic, geography, and history. In 1984 there were 479
graduate students, including 151 women.
The University of Petroleum and Minerals (King Fahd
University) in Dhahran, founded in 1963, offered undergraduate
and graduate degree programs in engineering and science, with
most programs of study offered in English. Also in Dhahran was
King Faisal University, founded in 1976, with colleges of
agricultural sciences and foods, architecture, education,
medicine, and veterinary medicine. In 1984 some 40 percent of its
2,600 students were women.
In progress in 1992 was the expansion of King Abd al Aziz
University in Jiddah. Founded in 1968, the university in 1990 had
about 15,000 undergraduate students, of whom about one-third were
women. It consisted of nine colleges, including arts and
sciences, environmental studies, marine sciences, medicine, and
meteorology. The university's expansion plans, funded by an
investment of US$2 billion, called for the addition of colleges
of education, environmental design, pharmacy, and planning and
technology. The completed expansion should accommodate 25,500
students, with a medical complex to include a hospital, a health
services center, and a medical research facility.
The establishment and growth of faculties of arts and
sciences, medicine, and technology have been accompanied by the
growth in religious institutes of higher learning. The Islamic
University of Medina, founded in 1961, had an international
student body and faculty that specialized in Islamic sciences. In
1985 the university had 2,798 students including several hundred
graduate students. The Islamic University also had a college
preparatory program that specialized in teaching the Arabic
language and religion; in 1985 there were 1,835 students, all but
279 of them foreign.
At least two of the universities founded for religious
instruction have integrated secular subjects and practical
training into their curriculum. The Imam Muhammad ibn Saud
Islamic University, established in 1974, produced qualified
Muslim scholars, teachers, judges, and preachers. The university
specialized in such classical studies as Arabic language and
Islamic jurisprudence. It also offered newer approaches to the
study of Islam, with courses in state policy in Islam, Islamic
sects, and Islamic culture and economics. In addition, practical
subjects such as administration, information and mass media,
library sciences, psychology, and social service were offered. In
1986 enrollment numbered 12,000 students with an additional 1,000
in graduate programs. More than 1,500 of these students were
women. Umm al Qura University, originally a college of sharia
with an institute to teach Arabic to non-Arabs, had grown to
include colleges of agricultural sciences, applied sciences,
engineering, and social sciences. Of its 7,500 undergraduate
students in 1984, 51 percent, or 3,800, were women.
The expansion of the university system in Saudi Arabia has
enabled the kingdom to limit financial support for study abroad.
Such restrictions had long been the desire of some conservatives,
who feared the negative influences on Saudi youth from studying
abroad. Since the mid- to late 1980s, the number of Saudi
students going abroad to study has dropped sharply. In the
1991-92 school year, only 5,000 students were reported studying
abroad; there were slightly more than 4,000 the previous year,
with half of those studying in the United States. These figures
contrasted with the approximately 10,000 students studying abroad
in 1984. As in the past, students going abroad to study received
substantial financial assistance. Students selected to receive
government funding to study abroad in 1992 received allowances
for tuition, lodging, board, and transportation; those intending
to study science or technology received an additional stipend. A
male student also was encouraged through financial incentives to
marry before leaving Saudi Arabia and to take his wife and
children with him. The incentives, including an offer of tuition
payment that allowed the wife to pursue a course of study as
well, addressed concerns about moral temptations and cultural
confusions that might arise from living alone abroad. As an
additional buffer against such potential problems, an orientation
program in Islamic and foreign cultures was offered at Imam
Muhammad ibn Saud Islamic University for students about to go
abroad.
Women going abroad to study were a particular concern for the
ulama in the Department of Religious Research, Missionary
Activities, and Guidance. In 1982 government scholarships for
women to study abroad were sharply curtailed. Enforcement of the
mahram rule, whereby women were not allowed to travel
without their closest male relative as a chaperon, discouraged
prospective students from studying abroad. In 1990 there were
almost three times as many men studying abroad on government
scholarships as there were women, whereas in 1984 more than half
were women.
Royal Technical Institute, Riyadh
Courtesy Aramco and Its World
The expansion of formal religious education programs in a
technologically modernizing society has created some economic
dislocations and some degree of social polarization between those
equipped primarily with a religious education and those prepared
to work in the modern economic sector. Opportunities for
government employment in religious affairs agencies and the
judiciary have been shrinking as traditional areas of religious
authority have given way to new demands of the modernizing and
developing state. At the same time, unemployment was becoming a
problem in the society at large. In the private sector, for
example, where most of the employment growth was expected from
1990 to 1995, employment was projected to increase by 213,500,
but at the same time the Saudi indigenous labor force was
expected to increase by 433,900. Consequently, the growing number
of graduates in religious studies--in 1985, 2,733 students in the
Islamic University of Medina and more than 8,000 in Muhammad ibn
Saud University in Riyadh--was a potential source of disaffection
from the state and its modernizing agenda.
Data as of December 1992
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