Education in Saudi Arabia


Public education—from primary education through college—is open to every Saudi citizen. The second largest governmental spending in Saudi Arabia goes for education. Saudi Arabia spends 8.8 % of its gross domestic product on education, compared with the global average of 4.6%, which is nearly double the global average on education. Saudi education is centered around the study of Islam, but is becoming more diverse.
Before 1957, when King Saud University was founded, many Saudi Arabians immigrated to other countries to attend universities.

Background

Saudi education is noted for its religious content. As of 2016, religious studies average a total of nine periods a week at the primary school level, compared to an average about 23 periods a week total for mathematics, science, social studies, Arabic language, English language and physical education. At the university level, nearly two-thirds of graduates are women.
The education system was also criticized in the 1980s and 1990s for "poorly trained teachers, low retention rates, lack of rigorous standards, weak scientific and technical instruction", despite generous budgets, that have compelled the kingdom to depend on large numbers of expatriates workers to fill technical and administrative positions.
Islamic theology has also historically held influence over women's education in Saudi Arabia as well. By 2019, however, the Saudi embassy in the U.S. noted that "While the study of Islam remains at its core, the modern Saudi educational system also provides quality instruction in diverse fields of arts and sciences."

Education management system

Education is free at all levels. The education system in Saudi Arabia is primarily under the jurisdiction of the Ministry of Education and the Technical and Vocational Training Corporation. Other authorities such as the Ministry of Defense and Aviation, the Presidency of the National Guard, and the Ministry of the Interior provide their affiliates and children with education at all levels, consistent with Ministry of Education guidelines. The highest authority that supervises education in Saudi Arabia is the Supreme Committee for Educational Policy, established in 1963.
According to the World Bank database, public spending on education is 6.8 percent of GDP, and public spending on education as a percentage of government expenditure was 27.6 percent in 2004. Education spending as a percentage of overall spending tripled from 1970 to 2000, and neither economic growth nor the price of oil had much impact on this trend.
The Ministry of Education developed The Ministry of Education Ten–Year Plan 1425–1435, which set the following goals:
In Saudi Arabia, children aged 3–5 years go to kindergarten. However, attendance of kindergartens is not a prerequisite for enrollment of first grade of primary education and kindergartens are not part of the official education ladder. Some private numbers have been established with technical and financial first aid-kit from the government.
According to government data, 100,714 children were in pre-primary education in 2007. The gross enrollment percentage was 10.8%, for boys 11.1 percent and for girls 10.4 percent.

Primary education

Primary education in Saudi Arabia lasts six years, and children at the age of 6 enter the first grade of primary education. All national primary schools are day schools and are not co-educational. In order to move on to intermediate education, children must pass the examination at the end of Grade 6 of primary school and obtain the Elementary Education Certificate.
According to government data, 2,442,482 students were in primary education in 2007 and the number of teachers totaled 217,555 in 2007. According to UNESCO, the gross enrollment ratio for boys was 99.9 percent, the gross enrollment ratio for girls was 96.3 percent, and the total gross enrollment ratio was 98.1 percent in 2007.

Intermediate and secondary education

Intermediate education in Saudi Arabia lasts three years.
According to government data, 1,144,548 students were in intermediate education in 2007 and the number of teachers totaled 108,065 in 2007. According to gross enrollment the total rate was 95.9 percent in 2007.
Secondary education in Saudi Arabia lasts three years and this is the final stage of general education. After the intermediate education, students have the opportunity for both general and specialized secondary education. Technical secondary institute which provide technical and vocational education and training programs lasts three years in the fields of industry, commerce and agriculture.
According to government data, 1,013,074 students were in secondary education in 2007 and the number of teachers totaled 87,823 in 2007.
As of 2007, gross enrollment rates were 91.8% in secondary education.
Investment in higher education has outstripped the western world in some cases.
Higher education in Saudi Arabia lasts four years in the field of humanities and social sciences, and five to six years in the field of medicine, engineering and pharmacy. The establishment of the King Saud University in 1957 was the starting point of the modern higher education system in Saudi Arabia. This was also the first university in all the Arab states of the Persian Gulf.
There are 24 government universities in Saudi Arabia, established in a short span of time. Among them, Taibah University, Qassim University and Taif University were established under the Seventh Development Plan. The universities consists of colleges and departments that offer diplomas, and bachelor's, master's and PhD degrees in various scientific and humanities specializations. Some colleges and departments also provide distance learning. There also exist private colleges, community colleges affiliated to universities, and girls colleges, in addition to government agencies and institutions that provide specialist university-level education.
According to a World Bank report, more than 70 percent of the students in Saudi Arabia are in the fields of humanities and social sciences, a figure similar to that of other Arab countries, like Djibouti, Egypt, Morocco, Oman, United Arab Emirates, and West Bank and Gaza
According to government data, a total of 636,245 students were enrolled in higher education in 2006. Among them, 528,146 students were in Bachelor programs, 9,768 students were in Master programs, and 2,410 students were in Ph.D. programs. Another 93,968 students were in Intermediate Diploma courses and 1,953 students were in Higher Diploma course. According to the World Bank, in 2006 the gross enrollment ratio for females was 36.1 percent, the gross enrollment ratio for males was 24.7 percent, and the total gross enrollment ratio was 30.2 percent.
In 2005, King Abdullah implemented a government scholarship program to send young Saudi nationals to Western universities for undergraduate and postgraduate studies. The program offers funds for tuition and living expenses for up to four years. An estimated 5,000 Saudi students received government scholarships to study abroad for the 2007/2008 academic year. Students mostly studied at universities in Canada, the United States, the United Kingdom, Australia, New Zealand, Switzerland, France, and Germany.
The universities in the United Kingdom which provide distance learning in Saudi Arabia include the University of Leicester. It has ranked in the top 1% of universities in the world by THE World University Rankings.
In the United Kingdom alone, more than 15,000 Saudi students, 25% of whom are women, attend universities. The large number of students also includes Saudis paying their own tuition. The large influx of Saudi students to the United Kingdom prompted the Saudi Ministry of Higher Education in 2010 to close access to the country for further study.

Girls' and women's education

In 1957, the Dar al-Hanan and Nassif private schools for girls opened in the city of Jeddah. The openings were prompted by Iffat, the wife of Faisal of Saudi Arabia. Afterwards the Saudi government began opening state-operated girls schools. Religious fundamentalists protested the openings of the schools. In 1963 King Faisal brought soldiers to control protesters when a girls' school opened in Buraydah. During Saudi Arabia's first oil boom many Saudi males who studied abroad brought foreign wives back to Saudi Arabia. This caused concern among Saudi fathers with daughters eligible for marriage. In the late 1970s the Saudi government greatly increased university spots for women as a way of slowly progressing and not to clash with traditional culture at the time.
The General Administration of Girls' Education was established independently from the Ministry of Education when girls education was started in Saudi Arabia 1960. Girls education was put under the control of a separate administration controlled by conservative clerics as "a compromise to calm public opposition to allowing girls to attend school".
60% of university students in Saudi Arabia are Saudi females. In Saudi Arabia, women in the labor force are mainly in the education sector. The first group of women graduated from a law program in 2008. On 6 October 2013, the first four women received their legal licences to practice law, not only as legal consultants but as lawyers in courtrooms and before the Saudi judiciary.
According to the World Bank report, female students in higher education in Saudi Arabia outnumber those in Jordan, Tunisia and West Bank and Gaza.
According to the World Bank, gross enrollment rate for female is 36.1 percent, gross enrollment rate for male is 24.7 percent, and gross enrollment rate for total was 30.2 percent in 2006. There are thousands of female professors throughout Saudi Arabia.
Around 2009, an expert on girls' education became the first woman minister in Saudi Arabia. Nora bint Abdullah al-Fayez, a US-educated former teacher, was made deputy education minister in charge of a new department for female students. In addition, Saudi Arabia provides female students with one of the world's largest scholarship programs. By this program, thousands of women have earned doctorates from Western universities.
The building of colleges and universities for women, which was recently announced by the government, is critically important. Women comprise 60% of Saudi Arabia's college students but only 21% of its labor force, much lower than in neighboring countries. 85% of employed Saudi women work in education, 6% in public health, and 95% in the public sector. Princess Nora bint Abdul Rahman University is the first women's university in Saudi Arabia and largest women-only university in the world, composed of 32 campuses across the Riyadh region.

Private education

In Saudi Arabia, private education is to be considered one of the elements supporting governmental education at all education levels. The General Department for Private Education at the Ministry of Education supervises private schools for boys and private schools for girls and government provides private schools with free textbooks and an annual financial aid. Government also appoints and pays for a qualified director in every private school.
According to UNESCO, in 2007, 48.9 percent of children enrolled in pre-primary schools, and 8.2 percent of children enrolled in primary school. As for the intermediate education, 6.4 percent of students enrolled in general programs were in private schools and 70.3 percent of students enrolled in technical and vocational programs were in private schools. As for the secondary education, 13.4 percent of students enrolled in general programs were in private schools and 61.6 percent of students enrolled in technical and vocational programs were in private schools. According to the World Bank, in 2004, 7.4 percent of students in tertiary education enrolled in private schools.
In respect of higher education, Saudi Arabia has 13 private universities, 7 of which are located in Riyadh.

International education

As of January 2015, the International Schools Consultancy listed Saudi Arabia as having 203 international schools. ISC defines an 'international school' in the following terms "ISC includes an international school if the school delivers a curriculum to any combination of pre-school, primary or secondary students, wholly or partly in English outside an English-speaking country, or if a school in a country where English is one of the official languages, offers an English-medium curriculum other than the country’s national curriculum and is international in its orientation." This definition is used by publications including The Economist.
In Saudi Arabia some international schools are owned by communities of foreign nationals, while others are private schools owned by individuals with Saudi citizenship.
The Saudi government limits community schools to one per locality or city per nationality; diplomatic missions either supervise or directly operate the community schools. These community schools are not required to separate male and female students into separate campuses and are allowed to host social activities with men and women mixed. They are not required to have Saudi citizens as sponsors since the Saudi authorities consider the schools to be under the sponsorship of the diplomatic missions. Czarina Valerie A. Regis and Allan B. de Guzman, authors of "A system within a system: the Philippine schools overseas," wrote that the Saudi Ministry of Education "still exercises restraint in implementing its regulatory functions" on community schools.
There may be more than one private school per nationality per city: the number of private schools that may be established is dependent upon the number of Saudi nationals willing to open a school in that city. Unlike community international schools, private international schools are required to follow Saudi regulations, including those related to gender segregation.
The British International School, Riyadh teaches from foundation one to high school. Over 80% of its students are British nationals, and the school follows the British curriculum.

Philippine schools

As of February 2006 about 75% of the Philippine international schools represented by the Commission on Filipinos Overseas were located in Saudi Arabia. Community-owned Philippine schools, including the International Philippine School in Al Khobar, the International Philippine School in Jeddah, and International Philippine School in Riyadh, were by 2006 managed by independent school boards but were initially managed by the diplomatic missions themselves. As of 2006 Riyadh has 13 Philippine private schools and Jeddah has five Philippine private schools.
Large numbers of Philippine children came to Saudi after many Filipino workers arrived in Saudi Arabia in the 1980s. The first Philippine school in Saudi Arabia, Philippine School in Jeddah was established after the Philippine Consulate in Jeddah began making efforts to start a school in 1983, and Philippine schools were later established in Riyadh and other Saudi cities. In 2000 Saudi Arabia had nine accredited Philippine schools. By 2005 Jeddah alone had four Philippine international schools, with two more scheduled to open shortly. By 2006 there were 21 Philippine schools recognized by the CFO, reflecting a 133% growth rate from 2000. Regis and Guzman stated that in private Philippine schools many Saudi rules that are not consistent with the culture of the Philippines are enforced.

Literacy

According to the results of the demographic survey conducted by the Department of Statistics and Information, Ministry of Economy and Planning in 2007 the incidence of illiteracy among the Saudi population was 13.7%. The illiteracy rate stood at 1.4% for the age group 10 to 14 years, while the highest level in the age group between the ages of 65 and more than 509,573 people to the rate of 73.9%. With regard to the spread of illiteracy among Saudi Administrative Regions, as the study showed a large disparity between the regions of the Kingdom, while the figure for both sexes was at its lowest level in the Riyadh region, at 9.9%, the highest level was found in the Jizan area at 23.5%, and the lowest rate of illiteracy among males was in Riyadh region, as the minimum rate of 5.1% and in Jizan higher rate of 14.8%, while the lowest rate of illiteracy of Saudi women was in the eastern region at 14.7% and the highest rate was in the region of Jizan at 31.6%.
According to the World Bank, there is gender disparity in the literacy rate. In 2007, 85.0 percent of adult were literate and 98.1 percent of youth were literate, 89.1 percent of male adults were literate and 79.4 percent of female adults were literate. As for youth literacy rate, 97.0 percent were literate, 98.1 percent of male youths were literate, and 95.9 percent of female youths were literate.
One of the World Bank reports suggested the relatively high adult literacy rate of Saudi Arabia, considering the continued low level of primary enrollment, derived from the successful use of religious organizations, particularly local mosques and local religious institutions such as Koranic schools for the provision of ancillary educational services, which is a trend of particular note in the MENA region.

King Abdullah Project for General Education Development

The King Abdullah Project for General Education Development is a SR9 billion project to be implemented over the next six years to create a skilled and work force for the future. A number of schools in Jeddah, Riyadh and Dammam have been selected for the implementation of this project. More than 400,000 teachers will be trained for the new program. In addition, this project will emphasize extracurricular activities for the purpose of developing intellectual, creative and communicative skills.

Criticism of the Saudi education system and reform proposals

The Saudi education system has been criticised. One observation was, "The country needs educated young Saudis with marketable skills and a capacity for innovation and entrepreneurship. That's not generally what Saudi Arabia's educational system delivers, steeped as it is in rote learning and religious instruction."
The study of Islam dominates the Saudi educational system. In particular, the memorization by rote of large parts of the Qu'ran, its interpretation and understanding and the application of Islamic tradition to everyday life is at the core of the curriculum. Religion taught in this manner is also a compulsory subject for all university students. Saudi youth "generally lacks the education and technical skills the private sector needs". Indeed, such control has stifled critical thought, and as a result, the education system does not necessarily foster innovation and creativity, both of which are essential to development. Saudi education has also been strongly criticized for promoting intolerance, including anti-semitic views, anti-Christian rhetoric, and referring to non-Muslims as "infidels", enemies of God, and enemies of all Muslims.
A further criticism of the religious focus of the Saudi education system is the nature of the Wahhabi-controlled curriculum. The curriculum also outright calls out Shias as Kuffar, which causes outrage in Shia-majority cities such as Qatif and Hofuf. The Islamic aspect of the Saudi national curriculum is examined in a 2006 report by Freedom House which concluded that "the Saudi public school religious curriculum continues to propagate an ideology of hate toward the 'unbeliever'. The Saudi religious studies curriculum is taught outside the Kingdom in madrasah throughout the world. Critics have described the education system as 'medieval' and that its primary goal "is to maintain the rule of absolute monarchy by casting it as the ordained protector of the faith, and that Islam is at war with other faiths and cultures".
The consequence of this approach is considered by many, including perhaps the Saudi government itself, to have encouraged Islamist terrorism. To tackle the twin problems of extremism and the inadequacy of the country's university education, the government is aiming to modernise the education system through the Tatweer reform program. The Tatweer program is reported to have a budget of approximately US$2 billion and focuses on moving teaching away from the traditional Saudi methods of memorization and rote learning towards encouraging students to analyze and problem-solve as well as creating a more secular and vocationally based education system.
A comprehensive Human Rights Watch review of the Education Ministry-produced school religion books for the 2016-17 school year found that some of the content that first provoked widespread controversy for violent and intolerant teachings in the aftermath of the September 11, 2001 attacks remains in the texts today, despite Saudi officials’ promises to eliminate the intolerant language. The texts disparage Sufi and Shia religious practices and label Jews and Christians “unbelievers” with whom Muslims should not associate.