Challenges Facing Saudi Higher Education

¶ … Vision to Address the Challenges facing Higher Education in Saudi Arabia in the light of Leadership and Excellence Approach

Research Significance

It is generally agreed that higher education is the main tool to solve leadership and human resources problems. Unfortunately, mass production of graduates from Saudi higher education fails to meet the required specializations and quality of private sectors. Many Saudi graduates lack the practical knowledge that can assist them meeting rigorous demand of the labor market. Moreover, Saudi higher education is characterized by the rigid theoretical standards, and constraint of curriculum making the implementation of an enriched experimental learning technique to be extremely difficult.

In the last 10 years, higher education in Saudi Arabia has witnessed a quantitative and qualitative transformation. The investment in the Saudi educational development has been attributed to the country's strategic importance for the human resources and leadership development. Investment in education has also been attributed to the recent needs for the social and economic transformation that the Kingdom has witnessed within the last few decades. Despite significant investments in the Saudi Kingdom, the higher educational development in the Kingdom has witnessed major strategic challenges. Saudi educational systems have experienced a rapid transformation in the last few decades since education was most practiced in mosques using Qur'anic studies.(Al-Liheibi, 2008). However, influence of western education globally has made the Directorate of Education to establish a formal educational system to implement western type of education. (Alsharif, 2011).

In 1930, the Saudi established first published school, however, only male children were formally allowed to be enrolled in schools. Although, female students were formally enrolled into public schools in 1960, however, female enrollment in schools faced a strong opposition where some people viewed girls education as worthless venture because of the Sharia law that forbids women to work. Discouraging female children in the Saudi educational mainstream has led to a shortage of leadership in higher education in Saudi kingdom. By 2015, the Saudi total population is 29.9 Million and female population are 42% (12.5 Million) and male population are 52% (17.4 Million). The Saudi policy that cut out almost 42% of the population from participating in economic and political activities give rise to the leadership problems in Saudi higher educational system. (Alexander, 2011).

Moreover, Saudi educational system is struggling to be aligned with western education system because of the rigid and dominance of traditional system in education. Although, Saudi has embraced modern education system, however, the Quranic style of education still have a significant impact in the current educational system. In Saudi, educational conditioning fosters a memorization of the Quranic contents lacking the application of practical contents. The style in education hinders an individual ability to develop problem solving and critical thinking skills required to practice in globalized and modern society. (Deepanjana, 2015)

Ahmed, & Siddiek (2012) also argue that Arabs state suffer from low quality of education, low international raking and low research productivity. Thus, quality of education in the Saudi Kingdom has become headache to education planners and educationalists globally. Moreover, many conferences globally have raised the issues of quality of education in the Arab world. Nourah, Sue, & Avril (2014) contribute to the argument by pointing out that Saudi Universities score very low in the global university ranking.

Typically, "none of the Saudi universities are listed within the 392 leading educational institutions in the World; King Saud University, however, ranks 199th in Webometrics, and King Fahad University of Petroleum & Minerals ranks 404th." (Nourah, Sue, & Avril, 2014 p 608).

The outcome of the survey from the Time Higher Education also shows that King Saudi University ranks 247th among the world university. Moreover, the "King Fahad University of Petroleum & Minerals" ranks 266th in the global university. (Nourah, Sue, & Avril, 2014 p 608). The performances of the Saudi universities are low compared to universities in many developing countries. A report carried out by the UNDP (2008) also reveals that Saudi has carried out a reform in the higher education, however, the reform has been unsatisfactory. (UNDP, 2008). (Nourah, Sue, & Avril, 2014 p 608).

Deepanjana, (2015) identifies leadership as an important tool for the development of university education. Typically, leadership competencies are very critical for sustainable growth and development. In the last few years, Saudi Arabia has embarked of Saudization program seeking to replace expatriate lecturers and researchers with indigenous lecturers in the Saudi higher education, however, Saudi is facing shortage of indigenous leaders who can take up the positions filled by foreign workers. Chaar (2010) argues that Saudi has faced a shortage of local skilled leaders in higher education, and the leadership skills and development are not part of the educational curriculum. Essentially, individual leadership skills start from higher education because leadership concepts integrated in the academic courses increase leadership skills of college graduate.

Alexander, (2011) believes that the leadership problem in Saudi Arabia is attributed to the fact the Saudi education system is line with traditions, Islamic systems, and customs. (Ministry of Higher Education, 2010). Moreover, Saudi leadership activities are in sharp contrast style with leadership styles in advanced countries. The author points out leadership skills are very critical to manage the university community. Amani, (2013) contributes to the argument by pointing out that Saudi is gradually moving towards western style of education. To enhance quality of education, the Saudi government prefers to recruit professional lecturers from western countries. Despite the attempt to improve the quality of education by attracting foreign workers with higher salaries, nevertheless, quality of university education raise issues among different professionals globally. Moreover, many private universities in Saudi Arabia do not offer courses that can enhance research and development. For example, the private universities generally offer market-driven courses such as Master in Business Administration. Moreover, Saudi traditional method of learning lacks courses that can encourage innovative research. Many universities do not offer research in pure and applied sciences. Lack of qualified academic staff is another leadership problem facing higher education in Saudi Arabia, and many public and private universities rely on expatriates.

AlGamdi, and Samarji (2015) contribute to the argument by pointing Saudi higher institutions lack research excellence and leadership skills that enhance effective electronic learning. Barriers to e-learning include lack of effective software and hardware. A report by the Ministry of Higher Education (2009) reveals that high rate of population growth has made the higher education in Kingdom to face a great challenge. The Saudi government has established some universities to meet national development, however, the Saudi higher educational system is not able to meet the demand for specialized human resources needed in the country.

Despite challenges facing higher education in Saudi Arabia, there is still a shortage of academic and scholarly research papers that cover challenges facing the higher education in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. The identification of challenges will assist in developing the visions that will assist in developing the strategy that will be used to develop the visions to address the challenges facing higher education in the Saudi Arabia. This proposal attempts to fill the gap by carrying a comprehensive research on the development of vision needed to address different challenges and develop changes for Saudi higher education.

1.1:Research Aim and Objectives

The research aim is to develop visions needed to address challenges facing Saudi Higher education in the light of excellence and leadership approach. The research objectives are as follows:

To design distinct leadership styles to negotiate various challenges and developing changes for Saudi higher education.

To explore effective leadership styles to encourage innovation, support research excellence and encourage knowledge exchange in Saudi higher education.

To explore the leadership strategy to enhance innovation and development in Saudi higher education.

To investigate challenges facing higher education in Saudi Arabia.

To explore how visionary leaders can assist in addressing the challenges facing Saudi higher education.

To propose an effective excellence and leadership approach to Saudi higher educational institutions

1.2 Research Questions

Addressing the research aim and objectives will assist in answering the following research questions:

What are the individual and institutional challenges facing the development of higher education in Saudi Arabia?

What are the effective leadership style to encourage innovation, support research excellence and encourage knowledge exchange in Saudi higher education?

How can leadership use visionary style to enhance innovation and fostering changes in Saudi higher education.

How can mixed method research can be used to address the challenges facing higher education in Saudi Arabia in the light of excellence and leadership approach?

1.3 Research Hypothesis

The proposal develops the following hypotheses:

Hypothesis 1

H1: Effective visionary leaders can assist in developing the right intellectual mix as well as capacity to impact and develop new knowledge using research and scholarship in the Saudi higher education.

Ho: Effective visionary leaders cannot assist in developing the right intellectual mix as well as capacity to impact and develop new knowledge using research and scholarship in the Saudi higher education.

H1: Effective changes for Saudi higher education requires transformation of educational system in line with western style of education to enhance quality of education and improve ranking of Saudi higher education globally.

Ho: Effective changes for Saudi higher education does not require transformation of educational system in line with western style of education to enhance quality of education and improve ranking of Saudi higher education globally.

1.4 Research Significance

The proposal will assist in responding to challenges facing higher education in Saudi Arabia by developing effective leadership styles to undertake ambitious transformation guided by the national policy framework to enhance changes for the Saudi higher educational system.

Moreover, the results of this proposal will enhance a greater understanding of the Saudi policy makers about the challenges facing higher education in Saudi Arabia. The understanding will influence their decision making on educational policies that will assist in enhancing changes towards modernization of education and adoption of effective leadership that work towards desired educational goals.

The research will also enhance a greater understanding of the academic community of challenges facing higher education in Saudi Arabia and the strategy to address the problem to improve global ranking of Saudi universities. Essentially, the outcome of the proposal will influence decision making of the Saudi university authorities on the appropriate method of carrying out innovative changes to enhance quality of Saudi higher education.

2 Proposed Research Methodology

This section discusses the research methodology that explores method of data collection, and data analysis, which assist in achieving the research objectives and answer the research questions.

2.1 Research Method

The proposal will use the mixed method combining both the qualitative and quantitative research. The major benefits of using the mixed method is that it will combine the benefits of both qualitative and quantitative research. Although, the mixed methods are more time consuming than using either quantitative or qualitative research, nevertheless, the mixed methods will address the shortcoming identified in either quantitative or qualitative research. The qualitative research will use document analysis incorporating literature and empirical studies. Glenn (2009) argues that "there has been an increase in the number of research reports and journal articles that mention document analysis as part of the methodology." "(p 27). This study will carry out a systematic evaluation of research articles and journals. The document analysis will be used as a mean of triangulation since the triangulation will assist the researcher enhancing research validity and reliability.

On the other hand, quantitative research will incorporate descriptive and analytical method to realize the research objective where data will be collected using survey strategy. The mixed methods will assist researchers to achieve accurate conclusion collecting data from a wide range of sources that include both primary and secondary sources. The use of multiple techniques will assist the researcher to deliver valid interpretation of research results.(Flick et al., 2007).

2.2 Data Collection

The study will collect both primary and secondary data using the both the qualitative and quantitative methods. The data will be collected using survey method from the universities' staff in Saudi Arabia. The survey data will be collected from the staff of universities in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia. A total of 250 participants will be considered for the analysis and all participants will be selected randomly. The questionnaire will be distributed to participants, which will be divided into four or five sections containing around 30 to 40 questions including demographic information (gender, age, education, and experience). The responses will be measured using the five-point Likert Scale that include: (a) strongly agree, (b) agree (c) neither agree nor disagree (d) disagree and (e) strongly disagree. Moreover, the secondary data will be collected from electronic database such as EBSCO database.

"The EBSCO is a comprehensive scholarly, multi-disciplinary full text database, with more than 5,300 full text periodicals, including 4,400 peer-reviewed journals. Offers indexing and abstracts for more than 9,300 journals and a total of 10,900 publications including monographs, reports, conference and proceedings." (University of Texas, 2014 p 1).