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[nomad soul]

Universities and colleges in for restructuring soon
Saudi Gazette | July 18, 2016
Source: http://saudigazette.com.sa/saudi-arabia/universities-colleges-restructuring-soon/

JEDDAH — Universities and colleges will be restructured within a couple of months to improve their academic performance, giving priority to courses required by the job market. The process will include merger of some colleges with others as well as closing of some colleges and development of others within the framework of Vision 2030.

The move comes after the Education Ministry noticed that some colleges do not meet job market requirements with some of them produce graduates specialized in theories. “The restructuring aims at improving the quality of education at universities,” an informed source at the Ministry of Education told Al-Madina Arabic daily.

The ministry has noticed that a majority of students prefer theoretical subjects compared to engineering, industrial and productive subjects, the source said. Experts attributed this tendency to the youth’s aversion to professional degrees.

According to one report, the number of students who joined professional courses was 8.6 percent of the total applicants in 2009. The figure rose to 12.6 percent in 2010 to decline further to 6.4 percent next year and in the next two years it has fallen to 5.4 and 5.3 percent respectively.

Admissions to agricultural courses did not reach more than 0.5 percent, the report said. Students opting for health specializations stood at 7 percent. More than 60 percent of students joined courses in humanities, arts, social science, business, law, education and science. More than 358,000 joined humanities and arts in 2013, accounting for 64 percent of total applicants during the past five years, the ministry pointed out. “Applicants for courses in social science, business and law witnessed remarkable increase,” the ministry said, adding that they accounted for 23 percent of the total or nearly 368,000 students.

“There was 32 percent increase in students opting for science topics with 184,128 students including women being enrolled in science colleges,” the report said. Admission for engineering, industrial and other professional courses reached 5.3 percent of the total in 2013. “Students who apply for agricultural courses are still very low,” the report said. A total of 6,076 students, 26 percent of them are girls, joined the agricultural courses in 2013, it added.

During the past seven years, the number of universities in the Kingdom rose from 20 to 34. The ratio of universities for every one million population stood at 1.16 in 2013. The universities were established in densely populated cities, the Arabic daily said.

Makkah and Riyadh regions have got the largest number of universities — 19. During the same period the number of colleges rose by 74 percent to reach 569 including 72 private colleges.

(End of article)

[scot47]

"Kalam Fadi" - Empty Words, of which we can find numerous examples in the Press.

[nomad soul]

[bertonneau]

So Saudi is restructuring to try and produce meaningful graduates that can actually do something. Given the state of these so-called universities and what they produce now, this should be fun to watch. Given that most Saudis don't want to go to Saudi doctors/dentists or use Saudi trained engineers, the idea that this will be flipped on it's head sounds like a fight/disaster in the making, but it's their country. I wish the best for them. Hopefully, they can drag the youth along and force them to produce something meaningful. The beginnings of the end of oil wealth are coming home to roost. Again, should be fun to watch.

[nomad soul]

On a related note...

There is good reason for the Saudi brain drain
By Theodore Karasik, Arabia Higher Ed | 1 August 2016
Source: http://www.arabiahighered.com/index.php/home-news/all-news/119-saudi-arabia/630-there-is-good-reason-for-the-saudi-brain-drain

The Saudi education system has many problems, some of them endemic. Whenever issues such as unemployment or terrorism are examined, Saudi education and its future becomes the focus for observers. And yet education is a key area of concern for the kingdom, even if we were only to go by the size of the ministry of education. With more than 500,000 teachers, it is the country’s third largest employer after the ministry of defence and the ministry of interior. It oversees a sprawling network of 25 public and 27 private universities and about 30,000 schools. Clearly, this ministry is central to the kingdom’s future. But its report card leaves much room for improvement.

The focus has long been on the curriculum, right from 1954, when the education ministry was established. There is a continuing debate about the emphasis on religion and languages at the expense of science and mathematics. Many Saudis see their education system as affected by political currents, with senior scholars fiercely shielding the curriculum from those who want to bring about change. There is a particular watchfulness towards a colloquial term “awakening” in reference to political Islam because this is seen as the cause of extremist tendencies. Unfortunately, this never-ending cycle of debate delays progress on the necessary curriculum changes. Until this matter is resolved, there will be discontent within the education system.

But the curriculum is not the only issue. Dilapidated school buildings, inadequate teachers’ salaries and long school holidays are problems too.

There is a perception that the lack of good teachers will result in students failing to get even a basic education, but who will still go on to university. This, many Saudis fear, will perpetuate the problem because these university students will get hired to work in the education sector and so the cycle will continue.

The education system is stagnating, producing graduates who do not meet international standards of excellence. This is why the kingdom’s teachers are required to take proficiency tests and complete training courses although there is no set schedule for these exercises. But it may take a generation at the very least to rectify the situation.

Another problem is the number of places in higher education, especially in the natural sciences. Students are usually poorly qualified on entry despite a high grade point average. They are competent up to a point but they are not used to questioning, show a preference for rote learning, take longer than they should to complete a task and can cope with specific numerical routines but not problem solving. These factors illustrate a gap between two cultures: the school versus university ethos.

Some factors that feed into this include studying in English, a lack of personal commitment to college education and inadequate study skills. The issue of studying in English is significant because physics, chemistry and biology traditionally use English as the basic language that directs approach, methodology and analysis. Although Saudi students may receive Arabic versions of the English text, some concepts do not translate well and the student can fall behind quite quickly.

Add to this the lack of commitment to a college education and it becomes clear that even the minimal time invested by a young person in their studies may go to waste. Often, this is because of the pull of traditional family values, which mean the student is obliged to put family before higher education.

The 2011 Nitaqat Law making Saudisation of the workplace mandatory is greatly affected by the human capital “output” from the kingdom’s education system. The fact that Nitaqat requirements need to be met means that employers will hire not who they need but those who will enable them to fill quotas to receive the maximum benefits allowed by the system. But for anything to change, it is Saudi employers who need to recognise that they are jeopardising the kingdom’s future by hiring employees who cannot do their job.

It seems that Saudi students are also frustrated by the current system. The common reasons cited by students who drop out of their first year in a Saudi university are the lack of information about what the degree programme involves, opportunities available for training in the relevant sector and typical employment opportunities.

Hundreds of thousands of Saudis have gone to universities in the United States and Europe to avoid the frustrations of the system in the kingdom. Abroad, they actually learn to analyse using rigorous methods and are able to play important parts in a knowledge-based society. However, overseas study may cause many of them to develop lives away from the kingdom, a phenomenon that the late King Abdullah referred to as “the Saudi brain drain”. He called for their return to help fix the country’s troubles across many sectors of the economy but this did not produce many results.

Overall, the Saudi education system needs to be overhauled urgently. There are internal pressures and the urgent requirement to produce the best and brightest at home. Time is not on Saudi Arabia’s side.

Dr Theodore Karasik is an analyst on the Gulf, specifically the kingdom of Saudi Arabia. He is based in Dubai.

(End of opinion)

[Grendal]

Yes I've seen the re-structuring first hand................

There is not much I can say about it.................

Well actually I have something to say about it but this is a family forum ................

end of transmission

Grendal

[scot47]

I see similarities between KSA and what has happened in recent years in the UKofGB&NI. Massive expansion in the numbers going to university but......

Look at what comes out !

Students and graduates look at many jobs in the real economy and refuse to do them. Summer jobs in the UK are increasingly done by migrant workers and not by the indigenes.

[worldtraveler411]

Anyone having a delay in their contracts and departure dates to Saudi Arabia because of this restructuring?

We've been put on delay to Saudi because of the changes or is that normal?

Our departure dates have been changed to 2 to 3 weeks.
I don't want to publicly say where.

[nomad soul]

[hash]

[nomad soul]

Specific to the Colleges of Excellence...

Saudis Struggle with Flagship Programme
By Jefferson Youth, EL Gazette | January 2017
Source: http://www.elgazette.com/

It’s no secret that the English-medium technical, vocational, education and training sector in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia (KSA) has been struggling with its flagship Colleges of Excellence programme, with many of the problems arising because Western partners failed to anticipate the specific challenges of teaching in the country. The Technical, Vocational, Education & Training Corporation – a provider under the supervision of the Ministry of Labour – runs technical colleges in the KSA and owns a 40 per cent stake in the Colleges of Excellence (CoE) colleges network.

The CoE was set up by the Saudis in 2014 to provide the local economy with skilled Saudi technicians, thereby decreasing its over-reliance on nine million expats. Since then, the programme has been beset with financial problems, low enrolment and management issues. With 37 colleges run by heavyweights from, among others, Germany (GIZ IS and FESTO), the USA (Laureate International and Interlink) and the UK (Lincoln Colleges International, TQ Pearson and many others), unconfirmed reports on social media suggest this programme, worth £1 billion to the British economy alone, may be scrapped in 2017. So what went wrong?

British media reports confirm many foreign training providers have run up huge losses in these ventures within the CoE network. The education.investor.uk website reported that Canada’s Algonquin College had become the latest institution to announce its withdrawal from the CoE scheme with an estimated loss equivalent to £3.5 million, excluding operating losses. British companies TQ Pearson and LCI both pulled out of managing two CoEs each, citing serious losses.

Back in March 2016, British educational website FE Week reported that, as of December 2015 Pearson was ‘in a legal dispute’ with the CoE to claw back some of its losses, citing breach of contract because of low enrolment at its colleges. Liz Tudball, Pearson English director of communications, replied to the Gazette with a statement saying, ‘Pearson confirms it has withdrawn from an agreement to run three Saudi Colleges of Excellence, with the colleges transitioning to new providers from June 2015.’

The website also reported that meeting minutes by LCI’s own management board suggested that ‘due diligence had not been effective’ prior to taking on CoEs in Saudi Arabia.

(End of article)

[bigdurian]

[b]because Western partners failed to anticipate the specific challenges of teaching in the country.[/b]

LOL

[currentaffairs]

There are a number of providers and some are worse than others. Pearson was generally a decent employer and the salaries were good, too. Laureate has been expanding all over the place and doesn't seem to have run into the difficulties noted above.

[ex500]

Anyone know how Laureate keeps getting contracts?

I know they opened the first COE in 2013 and also opened some new female ones in 2015.

I doubt they would have taken on new contracts if they weren't making money. They now have 3 male COEs and 5 female ones.

Seems like the government is intent on keeping the COEs running based on the fact they opened new ones only a year or so ago.

[RedLightning]

Elephant in the room