Since it was revealed that 15 of the 19 terrorists who attacked the United States on September 11 were from Saudi Arabia, some American editorial writers have pointed accusing fingers at the Saudi education system as having fostered an attitude of intolerance of non-Muslims and a hatred of Americans. Both Westerners and Saudis have talked about education in the kingdom, but much of the discussion has been superficial and without the benefit of understanding how the system actually functions. This article is intended to provide characteristics of Saudi education today, to facilitate the discussion and show the way to further analysis of this important subject.
MAJOR CHARACTERISTICS
For centuries, in the territory now called Saudi Arabia, education in the broadest sense has been taking place. As early as the seventh century CE, Islamic “kuttab” schools existed in the Western region (the Hijaz) in or near mosques, presided over by a Muslim preacher. These continued and spread, and some admitted girls as well as boys, either in separate locations or, for children under six, together. The function of the kuttab school was to study and memorize the Quran and other religious texts. Rote memorization of basic texts continues to be a central feature of much of the educational system of Saudi Arabia even today and can be traced back to the approach in the kuttab school. During the period of Ottoman rule in the Hijaz, government schools offered six years of education that included geography, history and even art in addition to religion, but courses were taught in Turkish. Many parents refused to send their children to these schools fearing they would be conscripted into the Ottoman army. They were also not satisfied with the limited education provided by the kuttab schools. In the ninth century, therefore, Hijazi merchants established private schools in Jidda, Mecca and Medina that offered a wider range of subjects in Arabic.1
Government control, one major feature of Saudi education, started early and has continued to this day. In 1925, shortly after Abdulaziz al Saud had unified the country, he established a Directorate of Education and created government schools. At that time the four private schools in the Hijaz were put under supervision of the Directorate. In 1938, the Directorate issued regulations confirming that it had control over all educational matters in the kingdom except for the military academies. In 1953, the Directorate became the Ministry of Education, and Prince Fahd (later king) bin Abdulaziz was the first minister. The structure created in 1925 offered six years of elementary and five years of secondary schooling. By 1958, the government had formally changed that structure to conform with standards elsewhere in the region: a 6year elementary school, intermediate and secondary schools of 3 years each, followed by a separate higher education function.2
Today government control over education is exercised by several different agencies. The Ministry of Education supervises schools for boys in grades 1 through 12. The General Presidency of Girls Education, created in 1960, supervised schools for girls in grades 1 through 12, plus the coeducational kindergartens and pre-schools and the eleven girls colleges, until 2002 when it was abolished and its responsibilities were given to the two ministries. The Ministry of Higher Education, created in 1975, supervises six of the seven Saudi universities, while the Council of Ministers supervises the Islamic University of Medina. The General Organization for Technical Education and Vocational Training supervises the vocational and technical schools that have been created since the 1960s. In addition, the Ministries of Defense, Interior and Social Affairs, and the National Guard, all supervise their own specialized training schools.3 Finally, the few private educational institutions that exist on all levels are also supervised by the relevant government agencies, which impose requirements relating to curriculum and other matters.4
The government of the kingdom has given emphasis to education under the global slogan “Education for All,” and it has devoted considerable financial resources toward that goal. The Ministry of Education’s budget in 1947-48 was $3.1 million, but by 1954-55 it was $21.6 million, by 1958-59 it was $50 million, by 1962-63 it was $78 million, and by 1966-67 it was $92 million.5 Government spending on education in 1974-75 was approximately $1 billion, then by 1983-84 it was $7.31 billion, and the two five-year development plans of the 1990s allocated more than $25 billion each to education, about 18 percent of the national budget.7 The priority in funding that the Saudi government gives to education compares very favorably with the rest of the Arab world. It spends 23 percent of its budget and 7.5 percent of GNP on all levels of education, higher levels than in almost any other Arab country. Saudi spending on education has given a lower priority to the post-secondary level, however, than almost all other Arab countries.8
Table 1: Growth of Enrollments and Schools6
|
Elementary Education |
Secondary Education |
||
Schools |
Pupils |
Schools |
Pupils |
|
1952-53 |
306 |
38,920 |
10 |
1,315 |
1957-58 |
547 |
91,787 |
35 |
4,912 |
1962-63 |
938 |
139,328 |
82 |
10,636 |
1966-67 |
1,168 |
212,674 |
108 |
21,297 |
1984-85 |
7,259 |
1.2 mn |
803 |
146,981 |
1994-95 |
10,890 |
2.1 mn |
1,960 |
378,441 |
Since education is highly subsidized, Saudi students at all levels pay little or no tuition, and university students receive monthly stipends. As a result, by any quantitative measure, Saudi education has grown very rapidly, as Table 1 shows.
By the year 2000, the total number of students enrolled in grades 1 through 12 had reached almost 4.11 million. Male students supervised by the Ministry of Education constituted 2.16 million (52.5 percent of the total). There were also 12,000 in special education (for blind, deaf or retarded children) and 108,000 in adult education. The number of teachers in grades 1 through 12 was 333,000, of whom 157,700 were at boys’ schools and 174,900 at girls’ schools.9 It is noteworthy that the numbers of Saudi females enrolled in grade schools at every level are nearly as high as the numbers for Saudi males, as shown in Table 2.
The Saudi educational system, like the Saudi economy generally, is heavily dependent on foreign skilled labor. Nevertheless, the absolute number and the proportion of Saudi teachers in the school system have grown substantially. Non-Saudi involvement in the educational system, which has taken place over many years, has continued, as Egyptian teachers came to the country to teach in the schools and brought with them their pedagogical ideas. However, an effort to train indigenous people has led to an increase in Saudi teachers, so that by 1993, about three-quarters of the elementary teachers, and two-thirds of the intermediate-level and secondary-school teachers, and more than half of the vocational-school teachers were Saudis.
The Islamic character of education was also central from the beginning. When the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia was formally established in 1932, it was declared to be an Islamic state with the shariah and the teachings of the Prophet Muhammad as its constitution. Arabic was declared the official language. The educational policy was enunciated in 1925: “While strictly observing the teachings of religion, education should cover the dissemination of knowledge and the opening of schools.”12 Special religious schools intended to support memorization of the Quran were established by the government in the 1920s. In 1957 these were made an integral part of the general education system, so they followed the curriculum provided by the government but also emphasized Islamic studies. In 1964, religious institutes were established on the intermediate level (grades 7-9) that are supervised by the Imam Muhammad ibn Saud University. At first they were only for boys, but in 1979 such intermediate schools were established for girls too. By 1990 there were 62 of them for boys with an enrollment of more than 5,000 and 16 for girls with an enrollment of nearly 1,000. Transfer in and out between these institutes and the regular schools was relatively easy.13 The first institutions of higher education were all basically Islamic: the College of Shariah (now Um al Qura University) opened in Mecca in 1949; the College of Shariah opened in Riyadh in 1953; and the College of Arabic Language (now part of Imam Muhammad Saud University) opened in Riyadh in 1954.14
Table 2: Male and Female Student Enrollments (year 2000)10
|
Male |
Female |
Totals |
Primary |
1.19 mn |
1.09 mn |
2.28 mn |
Intermediate |
582,000 |
491,000 |
1.07 mn |
Secondary |
390,000 |
366,000 |
756,000 |
Subtotal 1-12 |
2.16 mn |
1.95 mn |
4.11 mn |
Special Ed. |
8,000 |
4,000 |
12,000 |
Adult |
34,000 |
74,000 |
108,000 |
Table 3: Teacher Nationalities in Saudi Schools11
1983 Figures |
Elementary |
Intermediate |
Secondary |
|
Saudi |
47,551 |
8,974 |
2,736 |
|
Non-Saudi |
25,506 |
15,333 |
7,216 |
|
Total |
73,057 |
24,307 |
9,952 |
|
1993 Figures |
Elementary |
Intermediate |
Secondary |
|
Saudi |
110,137 |
37,093 |
17,039 |
|
Non-Saudi |
29,953 |
18,244 |
9,619 |
|
Unspecified |
7,992 |
2,612 |
492 |
|
Total |
148,082 |
57,949 |
27,150 |
|
An authoritative study of the subject states, “Islam is not only integral to Saudi education but also serves as the very essence of its curriculum,” and cites numerous passages in the 1970 official education policy that stress the centrality of Islam. Separation of the sexes has also been a consistent feature of Saudi education. In the early days, education for girls was limited essentially to a few girls-only schools or private tutoring at home. In 1960, the government established the General Directorate of Girls’ Education, which assumed responsibility for all K-12 education for girls in the kingdom. It created girls-only schools and controlled the curriculum, staffing and other aspects of schools for females.15 Headed by conservative men, the General Directorate ensured that female education conformed with government policy and the strict social norms prevailing in the country.
NEW TRENDS
It is noteworthy that several trends in Saudi education have become more pronounced in recent years: increasing geographic and subject diversification, more emphasis on science, vocational training and study in English, increasing privatization and some increase in study abroad.
First, the pressure on educational institutions to enroll more and more students has led to the creation of new schools and to regional branches of postsecondary institutions. All Saudi universities except King Fahd University and the Islamic University of Medina have branches in locations other than their main campuses. In addition, the demands of the economy have encouraged more emphasis on scientific and technological subjects
than before. Government-owned companies like Saudi Aramco and the Saudia airlines have expanded their training facilities substantially in order to meet their needs for skilled manpower. Also, private centers for short-term training in skills such as computer literacy have appeared all over the kingdom. American and other Western methods are increasingly used in these governmental and private programs. Some Saudi colleges have begun to adopt the American credit-hour and semester system, a trend that began earlier in other Arab countries.16
Second, a parallel development for similar reasons is the increasing use of English as the medium of instruction in the classroom. Recognizing this need for English to cope with the demands of the twenty-first century, the minister of education in early 2002 decided to introduce the study of English in all boys schools starting at age 9 rather than age 12, and to accomplish this change beginning in September 2002.17 The growth of regional branches and of technical and vocational schools, due to steady pressure on enrollments, a bigger age cohort and less study abroad, is in fact a phenomenon that exists throughout the Arab world.18
Third, it is significant that very recently, new private educational institutions have emerged. A very few privately-owned educational institutions have existed in the kingdom for a number of years on the kindergarten-through-12 level, established by Saudi business families in Jidda and in the Eastern Province. When they opened schools, however, they did so with the permission of the government, and they agreed to use the basic curricula approved by government authorities. Now the government has for the first time permitted the emergence of privately owned postsecondary institutions. When the Saudi Ministry of Higher Education legalized private colleges, several emerged: Effat College and Dar al Hikma College in Jidda, both for women; Prince Sultan College in Riyadh for men and women; the College of Tourism in Abha; and a business college for men in Jidda. As of 2002, planning was underway for a college in Baha and science colleges in Riyadh and Taif.19 This follows a trend in some other parts of the Arab world, where governments have increasingly begun to permit private colleges to open. Important private institutions of higher education have existed in Lebanon for years, but elsewhere they have emerged only recently, for example in Jordan and Egypt, and now in Saudi Arabia.20
Finally, the number of Saudis coming to the United States to study has been increasing somewhat, with the government devoting more financial resources to this account in recognition of the need for special skills for the economy. Some Saudi students returned home after the September 11 terrorist attack on the United States and subsequent reports of harassment and interrogation of Saudi students, and others postponed plans to travel to America, but this downturn may only be temporary, as there is increased interest in a Western-style education.
K-THROUGH-12 EDUCATIONAL OPPORTUNITIES
Saudi citizens have a number of different opportunities for schooling. Before they are six years old, at four and even younger, they may attend pre-school and kindergarten. At this level, education is optional and most schools are coeducational. The majority of these schools were under the General Presidency of Girls’ Education, 1960-2000, and now all are under the Education Ministry.21
Elementary education, a six-year program intended for pupils ages six through twelve, is compulsory for all Saudis. Upon successful completion of elementary school, pupils can be admitted to a three-year intermediate school, grades 7 through 9. Those who successfully complete the intermediate level can enter a secondary school.
For female pupils in the first through twelfth grades, all of their education is now supervised by the Ministry of Education. Saudi male pupils in these grades have more choice. Most of the boys attend schools operated by the Ministry of Education. Some elect to attend secondary schools run by the Islamic University or the Imam Muhammad ibn Saud University, which are in effect religious preparatory institutes giving special emphasis to the study of Islam and Arabic. Saudi boys can also elect to enter secondary vocational and technical schools operated by a government agency called the General Organization for Technical Education and Vocational Training. These schools, which offer technical, industrial, commercial and agricultural courses, had more than 28,000 pupils enrolled in 1994.22 Boys also may enroll in secondary military schools operated by the Ministry of Defense.
There are a few private schools, segregated by gender, but their curricula and general rules are also supervised by government agencies to ensure uniformity. Private-school directors can only add to the government-approved curriculum, not subtract from it.
Finally, a choice is offered to male and female pupils in the eleventh and twelfth grades of the regular schools, run by the Education Ministry, when they select either a literary or a scientific track. This determines the emphasis in their curriculum. It also tends to predetermine the course of specialization a student can take in college.
HIGHER EDUCATION OPPORTUNITIES
Many Saudis have taken advantage of opportunities in higher education. By the year 2000, there were 75 university colleges in 7 universities, plus 141 other colleges. The numbers of students and teachers in higher education are now substantial.
The Saudi universities and colleges differ in the programs they offer. Four of the universities – namely King Saud, King Abdul Aziz and King Faisal Universities and King Fahd University of Petroleum and Minerals – tend to offer courses with the most “secular” or non-religious content in their curricula. Two universities, the Imam Muhammad ibn Saud Islamic University and the Islamic University of Medina, offer extensive courses in Islamic and related subjects; a third, Um al Qura, also has a curriculum that is heavily Islamic.
The oldest and largest university, King Saud University (formerly Riyadh University), was established in 1957. It has granted doctoral degrees for 20 years. King Abdul Aziz University also has a large enrollment. Founded in Jidda in 1967 by a group of local businessmen and originally designed with the help of some American academics, it was taken over by the government in 1971. Both KSU and KAAU operate branches in other cities. King Faisal University was established in al Hassa in 1975. King Fahd University of Petroleum and Minerals, established in 1963 in the oil-rich Eastern Province city of Dhahran, specializes in science and engineering. There are two major leading Islamic universities. One is Imam Muhammad bin Saud, established in Riyadh in 1974, when a number of older Islamic colleges and institutes were consolidated, some of which have continued as provincial branches. (Many Saudis prefer to attend classes close to home.) The other one is the Islamic University of Medina, which caters primarily to non-Saudis wishing to study Islam. Imam Muhammad also has a considerable enrollment of non-Saudis as well, since it is thought important to propagate the faith outside the kingdom. The third university with a particularly heavy Islamic curriculum is Um al Qura in Mecca. Um al Qura University grew out of two older Mecca institutions, the Shariah College (established in 1949) and the Teacher’s College (founded in 1952). Its curriculum has traditionally been heavily focused on religion and Arabic, but in recent years it has increased the number of courses in science.23 These seven universities are supervised by the Ministry of Higher Education.
Table 4: Saudi Higher Education Institutions24
(data in 1000s, for the year 2000)
|
Students |
Annual Graduates |
Current Teachers |
|
Total |
% Female |
|||
University |
190.5 |
31 |
23.5 |
10.6 |
Teachers' Colleges |
24.7 |
0 |
4.0 |
1.8 |
Girls' Colleges |
159.7 |
100 |
23.6 |
4.9 |
Tech. Colleges |
17.9 |
0 |
1.7 |
1.5 |
Health Colleges |
4.6 |
35 |
1.0 |
0.4 |
Total |
399.9 |
55 |
54.0 |
19.4 |
Table 5: Saudi Universities (1993 statistics)25
|
Students |
Faculty |
Colleges |
King Saud U. |
30,559 |
2,696 |
17 |
King Abdul Aziz U. |
33,037 |
1,987 |
19 |
King Fahd UPM |
4,935 |
695 |
8 |
King Faisal U. |
5,240 |
727 |
6 |
Um al Qura U. |
18,635 |
1,184 |
9 |
Imam Muh. Saud U. |
20,734 |
1,263 |
13 |
Islamic U. |
3,058 |
378 |
5 |
Girls' Colleges |
19,582 |
1,136 |
14 |
There are considerable opportunities for Saudi women in higher education, all in non-coeducational institutions. Except for Imam Muhammad bin Saud, the universities admit women, but the women study in separate facilities, in some cases connected by closed-circuit television (one-way video, two-way audio) with the men’s campus. There are several separate “girls’ colleges,” mostly called Teachers Training Colleges for Women, located in cities around the kingdom, and these are all supervised by the Ministry of Higher Education. In the mid-1960s, there were fewer than 100 Saudi female college students, but by 1997 there were 140,000. Today slightly more than half of the students in Saudi post-secondary institutions, and slightly more than half of the graduates, are women. The most popular field of study for women is education, with two-thirds of the female graduates majoring in that subject. In contrast, women account for only 3 percent of the engineering graduates and 36 percent of the medical school graduates.26
Table 6: Students in Saudi Universities (1993 statistics)27
|
Students |
Colleges |
||||
Male |
Female |
Total |
Male |
Female |
Total |
|
King Saud U. |
19,808 |
10,751 |
30,559 |
6 |
11 |
17 |
King Abdul Aziz U. |
20,403 |
12,634 |
33,037 |
4 |
5 |
6 |
King Fahd UPM |
4,935 |
0 |
4,935 |
8 |
0 |
8 |
King Faisal U. |
2,553 |
2,687 |
5,240 |
2 |
4 |
6 |
Um al Qura U. |
10,327 |
8,308 |
18,635 |
1 |
8 |
9 |
Imam Muh. Saud U. |
17,568 |
3,166 |
20,734 |
7 |
6 |
13 |
Islamic U. |
3,058 |
0 |
3,058 |
5 |
0 |
5 |
Girls' Colleges |
0 |
19,582 |
19,582 |
0 |
14 |
14 |
Total |
78,652 |
57,128 |
135,780 |
33 |
48 |
81 |
By 1996 there were nearly a quarter of a million students in Saudi institutions of higher learning, more than 90 percent of them on the bachelor’s-degree level. Students on the PhD level in Saudi institutions are mostly concentrated in Islamic studies, unlike in most other Arab countries, where doctoral candidates are spread over a number of fields. Ninety percent of Saudi doctoral candidates are studying outside the kingdom.28
Female students are allowed to be admitted to one-third of the colleges. Only two universities – the Islamic University and King Fahd University of Petroleum and Minerals – do not admit women and with rare exceptions do not employ female faculty members. The other five universities admit women, but they are physically segregated in separate colleges. In addition to the university system, there are fourteen girls’ colleges, supervised by the General Presidency for Girls’ Education. Eleven of them are the oldest, having been established between 1970 and 1982: the colleges of arts in Riyadh and Dammam, the colleges of education in Riyadh, Jidda, Mecca, Abha, Buraida, Medina, Tobuk and Dammam, and the College of Social Work in Riyadh. In 2000, female students constituted 45 percent of university students, 55 percent of all students in higher education, and 58 percent of higher education graduates. The following table compares different higher-education tracks in the year 2000.29
As a consequence of the growth in female student enrollment and of the fact that education is segregated by gender in the kingdom, there are significant numbers of female teachers in higher education. The post-secondary system, however, still depends heavily on non-Saudi teachers, as Table 7 shows. It should be mentioned that the Saudi government has undertaken a widespread effort to support adult education, which in 1994 was helping more than 115,000 citizens take courses to prepare for the job market.30
Table 7: Faculty Members in Saudi Universities (1993 statistics)31
|
|
Male |
Female |
Total |
King Saud Univ. |
|
|
2,696 |
|
|
Saudi |
955 |
241 |
|
|
Non-Saudi |
1,178 |
322 |
|
King Abdul Aziz U. |
|
|
1,987 |
|
|
Saudi |
926 |
385 |
|
|
Non-Saudi |
494 |
182 |
|
King Fahd UPM |
|
|
695 |
|
|
Saudi |
228 |
0 |
|
|
Non-Saudi |
466 |
1 |
|
King Faisal U. |
|
|
727 |
|
|
Saudi |
322 |
84 |
|
|
Non-Saudi |
264 |
87 |
|
Um al Qura U. |
|
|
1,184 |
|
|
Saudi |
555 |
149 |
|
|
Non-Saudi |
401 |
79 |
|
Imam Muh. Saud U. |
|
|
1,263 |
|
|
Saudi |
792 |
5 |
|
|
Non-Saudi |
465 |
1 |
|
Islamic University |
|
|
378 |
|
|
Saudi |
337 |
0 |
|
|
Non-Saudi |
41 |
0 |
|
Girls' Colleges |
|
|
1,136 |
|
|
Saudi |
1 |
600 |
|
|
Non-Saudi |
164 |
416 |
|
Finally, study abroad is an additional option that some Saudi citizens have taken advantage of. Prior to the mid-sixties, very few Saudis went abroad to study, and most of them ventured no farther than Cairo. Between 1949 and 1960, for example, there were fewer than 100 Saudi students in the United States, or under 4 percent of the total of Arab students here. Then increasingly Saudis began to come to the United States to study. By 1965 there were more than 500 in the United States (11 percent of the Arab total), but still Egypt, Iraq and even Jordan had more students in America. By 1969, however, with more than 1,000 Saudis studying in the United States, the kingdom assumed first place among Arab states sending students here, and it has kept first place ever since. The oil boom led to another great increase in study abroad, as the government and private citizens had the necessary financial resources for it.
Thus in 1976 the number of Saudi students in America jumped to more than 3,000, and over the next two years that number more than doubled. By 1979 more than 8,000 were in the United States, one third of all the Arab students in America. In the 1981-82 academic year the numbers peaked at over 10,000, five times the number of students from Egypt, a far more populous country. Then the numbers studying in America began to decline, leveling off at around 5,000 by 1989. The decline was caused by the end of the oil boom and a decline in Saudi government scholarships, ostensibly because of the existence of good universities at home. Many Saudi families, however, pay for their children to study abroad. By 2001, there were still more than 5,000 in the United States, about one quarter of the Arab total.32
SUBSTANTIVE ISSUES
At the beginning of the twenty-first century, therefore, if looked at strictly in terms of quantitative measurements, such as enrollment and literacy, the Saudi educational system has achieved relatively high numbers.
Measured in terms of literacy, Saudi Arabia has done reasonably well compared to other Arab countries, ranking seventh out of 16 in adult literacy and eighth in female adult literacy.33
As for enrollment, it is significant that with a population in the year 2000 of approximately 16 million Saudi citizens, of whom 7.88 million were in the age group between 5 and 24, more than 4 million were students. Moreover, the approximately 400,000 students in institutions of higher education compares well with the 1.5 million Saudis in the 20-24 age cohort.34
Among 16 Arab countries, Saudi Arabia ranks fourth in male-female enrollment of all age cohorts and tenth in female enrollment. In higher education, the kingdom ranks fourth in male-female enrollment and sixth in female enrollment.35 Strictly quantitative measures, however, do not give the whole picture. It is necessary also to look at curricula and what goes on in the classroom. That kind of analysis is more difficult because sufficient systematic studies have not been undertaken. Yet on the basis of anecdotal evidence and comments by informed observers, we can at least make some tentative observations, pending the undertaking of a more precise investigation.
Table 8: Saudi Students, Graduates and Teachers (year 2000)
|
|
Students |
Graduates |
Teachers |
General education |
4,113,922 |
332,533 |
188,551 |
|
|
Primary |
2,285,328 |
|
190,570 |
|
Intermediate |
1,073,175 |
|
86,686 |
|
Secondary |
755,419 |
|
55,277 |
Higher education |
399,328 |
17,272 |
51,080 |
|
Technical education |
50,004 |
5,214 |
12,596 |
In assessing the relevance of Saudi education to the needs of the modern global economy, three characteristics come under scrutiny: government regulation, the emphasis on rote memorization, and the amount of the curriculum devoted to the study of religion. In fact, among Saudi educators and others concerned about education, there has been a recent increase in discussion and self-evaluation of the educational system, some of which has appeared in the press. This discussion has intensified since September 11.36
First, textbooks and other classroom materials are centrally controlled by the government. Committees in the ministries of education and higher education determine the proper content of textbooks and basic courses. Private schools are required to follow these guidelines, although they may add supplemental courses to the basic approved curriculum if they wish. The question is whether government authorities are able to make the curricula relevant to the needs of contemporary society.
Secondly, the pedagogical approach that stresses rote memorization and heavy dependence on one or few textbooks has traditionally characterized Saudi education in practice. This approach tends not to develop creativity or independent thinking, which is important for economic prosperity. As a World Bank study has said, “The quality of education must be upgraded to the demands of the twenty-first century. The emphasis needs to shift to cognitive skills and computer literacy.”37 It is clear that productivity and knowledge are linked in the private sector and that higher education increases income growth and productivity.38
Third, the study of Islam takes up a large portion of the curriculum in all K-12 schools. It was essentially the only subject in the past, when education was confined to the kuttab schools. As late as 1968 a study reported that, although government schools had emerged in many places by then, the kuttab school was “still the only school available in many villages.”39 Although they have now largely disappeared, and non-religious subjects are taught in most educational institutions, the study of religion pervades the curricula of all Saudi schools. The amount of time devoted to the study of Islam and Islamic content varies from institution to institution, and by age level, but it is present throughout the system. Pre-school pupils under the age of six are given regular lessons in Islamic principles as part of their program,40 and this study carries through to the highest level and in all types of education. Table 9 shows the allocation of time in class (45-minute periods) to different subject areas. Note that Islamic principles and doctrine are conveyed not only in Islamic-studies classes but also in Arabic and social-studies classes.
Table 9: Grade School Periods Per Week (1992 data)41
Regular Government Schools
Year |
Islamic Studies |
Arabic Language |
Social Studies |
Math |
Science |
Other |
English |
Total |
1 |
9 |
9 |
0 |
4 |
2 |
4 |
0 |
28 |
2 |
9 |
9 |
0 |
4 |
2 |
4 |
0 |
28 |
3 |
9 |
9 |
0 |
4 |
2 |
4 |
0 |
28 |
4 |
9 |
9 |
2 |
5 |
2 |
3 |
0 |
30 |
5 |
9 |
8 |
2 |
5 |
3 |
3 |
0 |
30 |
6 |
9 |
8 |
2 |
5 |
3 |
3 |
0 |
30 |
7 |
8 |
6 |
4 |
4 |
4 |
4 |
4 |
33 |
8 |
8 |
6 |
4 |
4 |
4 |
4 |
4 |
33 |
9 |
8 |
6 |
4 |
4 |
4 |
4 |
4 |
33 |
10 |
4 |
9 |
4 |
5 |
6 |
1* |
4 |
32 |
11-S |
4 |
4 |
0 |
7 |
12 |
1* |
4 |
32 |
11-L |
4 |
11 |
8 |
0 |
0 |
1* |
4 |
28 |
12-S |
3 |
3 |
0 |
7 |
12 |
1* |
4 |
30 |
12-L |
3 |
11 |
8 |
0 |
0 |
1* |
4 |
21 |
* vocational education
Religious Schools
Year |
Islamic Studies |
Arabic Language |
Social Studies |
Math |
Science |
Other |
English |
Total |
1 |
12 |
11 |
0 |
3 |
1 |
1 |
0 |
28 |
2 |
17 |
6 |
0 |
3 |
1 |
1 |
0 |
28 |
3 |
17 |
6 |
0 |
3 |
1 |
1 |
0 |
28 |
4 |
16 |
6 |
2 |
4 |
1 |
1 |
0 |
30 |
5 |
16 |
6 |
2 |
4 |
1 |
1 |
0 |
30 |
6 |
16 |
6 |
2 |
4 |
1 |
1 |
0 |
30 |
7 |
20 |
6 |
2 |
3 |
2 |
1 |
3 |
36 |
8 |
20 |
6 |
2 |
3 |
2 |
1 |
3 |
36 |
9 |
20 |
6 |
2 |
3 |
2 |
1 |
3 |
36 |
10 |
13 |
9 |
4 |
0 |
0 |
1 |
3 |
30 |
11 |
13 |
9 |
4 |
0 |
0 |
1 |
3 |
30 |
12 |
13 |
9 |
4 |
0 |
0 |
1 |
3 |
30 |
On the level of higher education, all universities and colleges have substantial Islamic content in their curricula. Even the most “secular” universities not only have departments of Islamic studies, they also teach Islamic studies in the four years that are compulsory for all students. Over the past few decades, there has been a trend to increase the non-Islamic content in most colleges and universities, such as English and scientific subjects, in recognition of the demands of the modern economy. This has, for example, been seen at the Imam Muhammad bin Saud University. Imam Muhammad, however, does not offer engineering or medicine, and the nonreligious courses it has added, such as history and geography, in practice as taught in their classrooms, have a considerable dose of material related to Islam. Students are required to memorize substantial portions of the Quran in order to graduate.
On the other hand, faculty members who want to introduce material that has no specific religious content can do so, but they must keep it within limits. Taboos that prevail within the society also apply to the classroom. Questioning of the basic tenets of Islam or of the wisdom of the monarch and his policies, for example, is understood by Saudis to be beyond the limits of public or classroom discussion. It is important for the Saudi system to produce Islamic scholars, and it is important for Saudi citizens to know their religion. The only question is, how many need to reach the highest level of Islamic learning, and how much time do ordinary citizens need to devote to religious learning at the expense of other studies?
In Saudi institutions of higher learning, the most popular subjects in fact have been the fields of religion and Islamic law. Unlike Egypt and other Arab countries, colleges of arts, letters and humanities are not as common in the Saudi educational system, and colleges of business and political science do not exist as such, although King Saud, King Faisal and King Abdul Aziz Universities have colleges of administrative sciences or economics that offer similar courses of study. Fewer than one-third of all Saudi post-secondary faculty members who have advanced degrees are specialists in science or technology, the lowest percentage in the Arab world. Student demand in the fields of education, medicine, science, engineering and agriculture have, however, grown in recent years.42
The Saudi educational system has several practical implications for the Saudi economy. Although the various Saudi educational institutions offer different types of preparation and skills, under Saudi law, all graduates enjoy equal status. Depending on what degree a graduate has, he or she is entitled to a particular job grade in the public sector, i.e. grade 9 for a PhD, 8 for an MA and 6 for a BA. In actual practice, however, it is thought that graduates of Imam Muhammad tend to be preferred for employment in the public sector because of their strong religious education, while graduates of the University of Petroleum and Minerals are preferred in the technical sectors.43
As the technological requirements of the global economy grow, there is increasing pressure on the system to produce graduates who have the skills to be productive in that economy. Private-sector businessmen often hire non-Saudi skilled labor in preference to Saudi graduates, at least in part because of skills differentials. The government’s Saudization policy is intended to force the hiring of more Saudi graduates, but businessmen resist it.
During recent years, as the educational system increasingly has produced more graduates than can be absorbed by the economy, the minimum grades required to enter a college or university have been raised somewhat. Some high school graduates with 80 percent are now unable to find university seats.44 The population of Saudi citizens in 2000 was 16.2 million and growing at 3.5 percent, due to high fertility rates and good health conditions. The Saudi population had a high proportion of young people, with an average age of sixteen, 74 percent under age thirty and 38 percent under eleven. The government’s Seventh Development Plan, which covers the five years 20002004, recognizes the need to provide employment for many more Saudis, especially in the private-sector jobs that require appropriate education and training. In 2000, 78 percent of the 0.9 million government employees were Saudis, but only 39 percent of the 6.3 million private sector employees were Saudis. The Development Plan calls for 329,000 new job opportunities over the five years, of which 95 percent would be in the private sector, plus 489,000 jobs for Saudis created by substituting citizens for foreign labor. The government has declared that the Saudi demographic profile and projected need for new jobs have created a special challenge to the Saudi education system. The Development Plan says the absorptive capacity of educational institutions must be increased in order to help create a cadre of productive workers.45
For Saudi female university graduates, opportunities to work professionally are limited to certain fields. Most find employment in education, nursing and social work, and in all of these cases their activities tend to be confined to working only with other females.46
Finally, it is clear that Saudis who study abroad in the West acquire an education substantially different from the one they acquire in the kingdom. Not only are pedagogical methods quite different from most Saudi institutions, but the atmosphere in the West of independent inquiry, the questioning of authority, and the study of subjects like comparative religion give the student a very different experience. Because large numbers of Saudis studied in the West in the 1970s and 1980s, many are now in positions of influence in government and business. The more recent decline in study abroad means, however, that in the future there will be fewer Saudis in leadership positions who will have experienced Western education and the culture that goes with it.
There are indications that today the Saudi authorities are taking a look at the curricula and teaching methods with an eye to making some reforms to bring them more into line with the needs of the modern world. This is an important issue for Saudi prosperity. As a World Bank study said about the developing countries:
Tomorrow’s workers will need to be able to engage in lifelong education, learn new things quickly, perform more non-routine tasks and more complex problem solving, take more decisions, understand more about what they are working on, require less supervision, assume more responsibility, and . . . have better reading, quantitative, reasoning, and expository skills. Again, education will be center stage.47
Government officials appear to be aware that this applies to Saudi Arabia.48 Change in Saudi Arabia, however, always comes slowly, and there are many vested interests in the perpetuation of the status quo. Therefore, the major characteristics of the system are likely to continue for some time.
1 Hamad I. Al Salloum, Saudi Arabian Cultural Mission to the United States, Education in Saudi Arabia (Beltsville, MD: Amana Publications, 1995), 2nd edition, pp. 7-8. (An earlier and longer version of this study, in Arabic, was published in 1988 under the title “Al Taleem al Aam fil Mamlaka al Arabia al Saudia”) Examples of early private schools were the Solatia, Fakria, Fallah and Khairia schools, all closed in 1961. I am grateful to Dr. Kevin Taecker, Dr. Abid Gama and others who prefer to remain anonymous, for help in preparing this article.
2 Ibid., pp. 9-11.
3 Ibid., pp. 22-26, and World Education News and Review, “Education in Saudi Arabia,” Vol.14, Issue 6, November-December 2001, http://www.wes.org.
4 For a complete list of all educational institutions, see the Arabic publication, published by the Guidance Department of the Ministry of Education, “Dalilak nahw mustaqbalak al taalimi wa al mihani” [Your Guide to Your Future in Education and Training], Riyadh, pp. 1421-22. Information on the presidency from the U.S. embassy, April 2002.
5 Alfred Thomas Jr., Saudi Arabia; A Study of the Educational System of Saudi Arabia, (Tempe, AZ: Council on Evaluation of Foreign Student Credentials, 1968), pp. 39-40.
6 Ibid., p. 40 (1952-67 data); and Salloum, op. cit., pp. 34 and 45 (1984 and 1994 data).
7 Salloum, op. cit., p. 21.
8 The share of the Saudi government’s budget is higher than any Arab country except Morocco (24.9 percent), and its share of the GNP is higher than all Arab states except Jordan (7.9 percent) and Tunisia (7.7 percent). Only Oman devotes a lower proportion of its spending to higher education (7 percent) than Saudi Arabia (15.6 percent). UNESCO, Regional Office for Education in the Arab States, Higher Education in the Arab States, (Beirut, February 2002), p. 43. (This excellent study, compiled and edited by Dr. Victor Billeh of UNESCO, was prepared with the help of Dr. Munir Bashur of the American University in Beirut.)
9 Saudi Arabian Monetary Agency (SAMA), Research and Statistics Department, Thirty-seventh Annual Report, 2001, p. 246.
10 Ibid.
11 Salloum, op. cit., pp. 35, 39 and 46.
12 Ibid., pp. 4 and 9.
13 UNESCO, International Bureau of Education, World Data on Education, 3rd edition, 1999, (CD-Rom), “Saudi Arabia” section.
14 Salloum, op. cit., p. 10.
15 Ibid., pp. 11, 15-19.
16 Higher Education in the Arab States, op. cit., pp. 25-26.
17 Private communication from Riyadh, February 2002.
18 Higher Education in the Arab States, op. cit, pp. 24 and 30.
19 Private communication from Riyadh, February 2002.
20 Higher Education in the Arab States, op. cit., pp. 24 and 40.
21 Salloum, op. cit., p. 29.
22 Ibid., pp. 51-52.
23 Ibid., pp. 70-72.
24 Thirty-seventh Annual Report, op. cit., p. 251. (Total is larger due to rounding.)
25 Salloum, op. cit., p. 67.
26 Higher Education in the Arab States, op. cit., pp. 21-22.
27 Salloum, op. cit., p. 68.
28 In 1996 there were 244,808 students in higher education, with only 5,570 on the MA level and 2,226 on the PhD level. Higher Education in the Arab States, op. cit., pp. 25 and 39.
29 Saudi Arabian Monetary Agency, op.cit., pp. 250 and 252 .
30 Salloum, op. cit., p. 93.
31 Ibid., p. 69.
32 Institute of International Education, Open Doors (New York: IIE, 2001).
33 The Saudi percentages for 1999 were 76.1 and 65.9, respectively. Higher Education in the Arab World, op. cit, p. 38.
34 Thirty-seventh Annual Report, op. cit., pp. 249 and 268; and World Education News and Review, op. cit.
35 Higher Education in the Arab States, op. cit., p. 38.
36 The daily newspaper al Watan, published in Abha under the patronage of the Governor Prince Khalid al Faisal, has published opinion pieces which frankly discuss educational shortcomings. Private communication from Jidda, February 2002.
37 World Bank, Will Arab Workers Prosper or Be Left Out in the Twenty-First Century? (Washington, DC: 1995), p. 18.
38 These two conclusions come from recent studies of the region: Global Information Infrastructure Commission, Building the Global Information Economy (Washington, DC: CSIS, 1998), pp. 41-42; and UNESCO, Higher Education in Developing Countries: Peril and Promise (Paris: 2000), pp. 37 and 92.
39 Thomas, op. cit., p.42.
40 Salloum, op. cit., pp.29-30.
41 Islamic studies include Holy Quran, Theology (tawhid), Islamic tradition (hadith), Islamic jurisprudence (fiqh); Social studies include geography and history; “Other” is art and physical education. S and L denote scientific and literary streams. Source: UNESCO, World Data on Education (Paris: 2001), 4th edition.
42 Higher Education in the Arab States, op. cit., pp. 21 and 41.
43 Private communication from Jidda, February 2002.
44 Private communication from Jidda, February 2002.
45 Saudi Arabian Monetary Agency, op. cit., pp. 266-80.
46 Higher Education in the Arab States, p. 21.
47 World Bank, Human Development/Middle East and North Africa, Education in the Middle East and North Africa: A Strategy Towards Learning for Development (Washington, DC: 1998), p. 1.
48 See, for example, a speech by the Saudi Minister of Higher Education, Dr. Khalid al Ankary, on March 13, 2002, at a conference on Arab higher education held in Marrakech and sponsored by AMIDEAST, to be published in 2002.
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