VISION 2030: SAUDIS SET SIGHTS ON EDUCATION REVOLUTION
▶ Minister says system is ‘product of the past, not an enabler of future’ as he heralds period of transformation
Saudi Arabia’s Vision 2030 is the driving force behind education reforms aimed at producing something perhaps once unheard of in the kingdom: critical, independent thinkers.
The country’s national transformation programme seeks to repair an outdated education system that has placed its students near the bottom of international assessment rankings and failed to prepare them for a post-oil economy.
“Education is key to the success of Vision 2030. Our current education system is a product of the past, not an enabler of the future,” Saudi Arabia’s minister of education, Dr Ahmed Al Eissa, told education and business leaders gathered for the Yidan Prize Summit in Hong Kong yesterday.
“A tradition of simply transmitting knowledge is no longer adequate. We need to rethink education from preschool through graduate schools and we need to do this urgently.”
Education accounts for about 25 per cent of the country’s annual budget.
This year, the government allocated about US$53.3 billion (Dh195.7bn) to public education, which employs more than 500,000 teachers in 30,000 public schools across the country, according to the minister. About 5.5 million children are enrolled in Saudi Arabia’s K to 12 schools.
The high investment in education has not necessarily translated to high standards, however. Results from the latest 2016 Progress in International Reading Literacy Study (Pirls) – an international assessment that measures the reading achievement of 10-year-olds from 50 countries – released last week showed that fourth-graders in Saudi Arabia were reading at a level well below the international average. The kingdom scored 430 – significantly lower than the Pirls scale centrepoint score, 500 – placing it 44th out of 50.
Next year, students will take part in the programme for international student assessment (Pisa) for the first time.
The test is issued every three years by the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development to 15-year-olds to measure reading, maths and science comprehension.
The ministry is also working with the National Association for the Education of Young Children in the United States to acquire additional expertise in early childhood development, curriculum design and setting standards.
Since Dr Al Eissa was appointed minister two years ago, major curriculum reforms have taken effect.
Last year, he announced that the subjects of health and physical education would be offered in schools for girls.
The classes began this academic year, he said. The evolving curriculum, which also applies to religion, is still developing, he said.
“To me, it’s giving the students a chance to participate, to question, to open their eyes to different ideas, this is the way that the students will engage and this is the way that they can develop their own critical thinking skills and communications skills,” Dr Al Eissa said.
“Once they leave the school system and participate in the job market, they should be different people. In general, the government looks at education as a driving force.”
In the meantime, the kingdom has started working with its public school teachers to improve the quality of teaching. Unlike in the UAE, where private and public schools struggle to recruit teachers, Saudi Arabia faces an oversupply of graduates from local colleges and universities with teaching degrees.
“The ratio of students to teachers in our system is quite low,” Dr Al Eissa said. “We have more teachers than we need, and the waiting list – those who are waiting to get a job in the education sector – is too high.”
Dr Al Eissa said the ministry was working on an initiative to improve the quality of education and calibre of graduates coming out of the colleges of education at the country’s public universities. The government is also considering raising the criteria for new recruits.
The ministry also selects about 1,000 teachers a year to travel abroad for a year to gain training and experience in the US, UK, Canada, Finland, Australia and New Zealand.
“The key factor is to retrain our teachers,” Dr Al Eissa said. “The international teacher training programme opens a new opportunity for teachers to look at the world differently. They engage in a real-life experience, they have this type of, let’s say, tolerance, acceptance of other people and talk with people from different religions, with different backgrounds. So, this is the way that education should move forward.”
The ministry recently introduced an initiative called Future Gate to promote digital learning and “change the whole setting” in schools.
It handed out iPads to pupils and teachers in 150 schools and is encouraging more technology-enabled teaching and learning. Next year, the programme will be expanded to include 1,500 schools. It is the first step towards the government’s goal of eliminating all textbooks in K-12 classrooms.
“The excitement that students have when they use technology in the classroom and at home is different than the way they are studying now. It’s a complete change,” the minister said.
“The focus is to change the philosophy of education from teacher-based instruction to student-centred instruction, and giving them opportunities to be responsible about themselves, to be critical thinkers, to engage in the most critical issues. They have to question; they have to participate in complex situations. This is the biggest challenge for us, how to change the whole environment.”
To me, it’s giving the students a chance to participate, to question, to open their eyes to different ideas DR AHMED AL EISSA Saudi Arabia’s minister of education