HISTORY OF WOMEN’S EDUCATION IN SAUDI ARABIA

The education of women in Saudi Arabia has a relatively short history. Prior to 1960, formal State-provided education did not exist for women and girls. In common with education for boys, any education was generally faith-centred.^{[1336] [1337] Families wanting to educate their daughters sent them to kuttabs (small Qur’anic schools usually attached to a mosque) for classes (boys too were sent to these schools for a religious studies education).}

Education (outside the home and often inside it) for girls stopped at puberty ‘when strict seclusion at home began and veiling in public became mandatory’.^[1340] A few wealthy families retained tutors, who continued to teach but often combined the role with that of governesses or companions. A tiny group were educated abroad.^[1341]

In the 1950s, the Ministry of Education, the governmental bureaucracy founded as recently as 1954^[1342] and originally responsible solely for the education of boys, first permitted girls to sit for the intermediate and secondary school examinations as external students and earn officially recognised school certificates. It is worth recalling that in Saudi Arabia at this time there were few schools provided by the State even for boys but a huge effort had been being made since the early 1950s to correct that situation (and improve the nation’s appalling literacy rate)^[1343] but even boys’ primary education was not mandated until 1958, while the number of schools and their inspection was insufficient to guarantee boys’ attendance.^[1344] That primary education for girls was mandated just three years later in 1961 represents quite an achievement.^[1345]

The first attempt to give Saudi girls (beyond the royal family) formal education within Saudi Arabia was the Dar Al-Hanan^[1346] (‘House of Affection’) school, a small privately funded residential school for girls that had been founded in 1955 by the Turkish-educated - and teacher- trained and qualified - Queen Iffat, who saw the ‘dire need’ for girls’ education.^[1347] The aim of the School was to provide an education that would enable the girls to secure a higher standard of living than might otherwise have been the case.^[1348] First, upper nursery and primary edu­cation was provided where girls followed the curriculum of the Ministry of Education (with which it was registered from 1957) and took the same final examinations as the boys.

Formal education for girls was officially recognised in 1960, when King Faisal announced in a royal speech that it had been decided upon the wish of the Ulama (religious scholars) to open schools for girls under a committee responsible to the Mufti.^[1351] That same year that committee was replaced by the General Presidency of Female Education (GPFE),^[1352] which was responsible for girls’ education at every level throughout the entire country. All private girls’ schools came under its supervision in 1960, as did the girls’ State-funded schools which had been opened across Saudi Arabia.

An early writer noted, however, that the GPFE remained ‘effectively, a ministry staffed by men whose training and experience [were] entirely in religious sciences’ (that is, religious scholars, reflecting what is still today the primary purpose of education).^[1353] Girls’ education remained under the Department of Religious Guidance (rather than the Ministry of Education) until amalgamated with the Ministry of Education in 2002 (further on this below). Although the GPGE president had the same status as a minister and was a member of the Council of Ministers, the area of female education was comparatively poorly funded compared to boys’ education with girls’ schools therefore tending to be ill-equipped and often located in older, unsafe buildings.

Although King Faisal supported the right of women to reach their goals, he was not able to convince the public at the beginning.^[1354] Opposition could be quite formidable in local communities: he had to send an official force to Buraydah in 1963 to keep the girls’ school there open.

King Faisal would cite the Qur’an and Islamic teachings to support the concept of women’s education. When he faced resistance, for example, he would ask, ‘Is there anything in the Holy Qur’an which forbids the education of women?’ Moreover he has been reported as saying (and quoting a well-known Hadith),^[1355] ‘We have no cause for argument; Allah enjoins learning on every Muslim man and [woman].’^[1356]

While non-religious education for boys was considered of secondary importance to that of holy learning related to the Qur’an, secular knowledge (trade training and other non-religious learning) had gained increasing status as it related to the role of the male in his role as provider for his family and in relation to their role in driving the nation forward, rather than relying on increasing numbers of imported foreign nationals; however, non-religious education of girls was, at least initially, considered useless and even, according to certain conservative religious scholars, dangerous. While women centuries before, in the earliest days

of Islam, had reportedly been traders (including Khadijah,^[1357] the first wife of the Prophet), translators, administrators, scholars, jurists and persons whose valued advice could be sought, farmers, even warriors, as well as carers (including nursing and surgery)^[1358] of the injured and ill, this model had been lost in the intervening years and women had become ever more closely ‘enclosed’ as particular understandings regarding women and their roles rose to prominence.

Over time, however, the public took a generally and increasingly more favourable position toward the enrolment of girls in school. The contin­ued support by both King Faisal and Queen Iffat, and the royal family generally, for education of women and girls contributed to that change.^[1359] By 1989, the number of girls (1.2 million) enrolled in schools was almost equal to the number of boys (1.4 million). This represented a consider­able improvement on the 1981 figures where 81 per cent of boys and just 43 per cent of girls were enrolled).^[1360] An immense programme of school building (both schools for boys and schools for girls) continued apace. (Over 900 schools were opened in 1988/89, for example.)^[1361]

Administration of girls’ education remained under the control of the General Presidency of Female Education, an organisation staffed by conservative religious scholars. The purpose of educating a girl, as stated by the Director General, was ‘to bring her up in a proper Islamic way so as to perform her duty in life, be an ideal and successful housewife and a good mother, ready to do things which suit her nature as teaching, nursing, and medical treatment’.^[1362] Thus employment outside the home, though in roles particularly ‘suited to [a woman’s] nature’ was explicitly recognised.

While upholding the centrality of Islam, the approach adopted by Queen Iffat also had much in common with early Western justifications for female education. She counselled women to learn about their faith, but added that every girl should get an education, because education enlightens human beings, who should know how to use their brains. Furthermore she emphasised the importance of an educated mother in the upbringing of a family, in the formation of children and the nation.^[1363] Again, the emphasis was on ‘one woman at a time’, on evolution of an education system that recognised women’s abilities and rights and consolidated them, rather than a ‘revolution’ where wholesale and sudden change that risked a devastating backlash, damage to the society as a whole and to women in particular.

School education was not automatically accompanied by higher edu­cation for women. In the 1960s, women who aspired to earn a university degree without leaving the country enrolled as external students in the small undergraduate programme which was then offered to women by Riyadh University (now the King Saud University) and the King Abdul­Aziz University. A few women went to universities in other Arab countries or in the West, and they were sponsored either by their families or by the Saudi government. With girls’ schools opening on a large scale across the country, and girls’ education rapidly growing in scope, the need for qualified female teachers was pressing. This led to the opening of the Riyadh College of Education in 1970.^[1364] Its main goal was to train Saudi teachers for intermediate and secondary girls’ schools. The Riyadh College of Education was the first institution of higher education for women in Saudi Arabia. Later, seven more institutions of higher edu­cation for women were opened in the country: a college of education in Jeddah (1974), a college of education in Makkah (1975), an institute of social work in Riyadh (1975), a college of arts and sciences in Dammam (1979), a college of arts in Riyadh (1979), a college of education in Madinah (1981), a college of education in Buraydah (1981) and a college of education in Abha (1981).

These are all four-year degree awarding institutions, offering university-level education, and are governed by a department of GPFE known as the ‘Vice-Presidency of Colleges’ and headed by a vice­president. Education in women’s institutions of higher education is free, as it is in all universities and State schools in Saudi Arabia. The colleges offer degrees in Islamic Studies, Arabic Studies, English, Geography, History, Home Economics, Mathematical Sciences, Physics, Botany, Zoology and Education.

1. to train enough qualified female Saudi teachers and administrators for the nation’s girls’ schools and colleges;

2. to train girls to be good Muslims, accomplished house-keepers, ideal wives, good mothers and highly qualified scholars;

3. to provide higher education for Saudi women as well as to non-Saudi Muslim women living in Saudi Arabia; and

4. to give scholarships to a few women from other Muslim countries to study Islamic studies in Saudi Arabia.

Women’s schooling at all levels - elementary, secondary, high school and university - remained under the Department of Religious Guidance until 2002, while the education of boys was overseen by the Ministry of Education. This supervision was to ensure that women’s education did not deviate from the original purpose of female education, which was to make women good wives and mothers, and to prepare them for accept­able employment such as teaching and nursing that were believed to suit their nature. The GPFE did not enjoy the same prestige as the Ministry of Education, and was heavily influenced by conservative religious scholars, which resulted in course offerings remaining restricted, education chron­ically underfunded and buildings overcrowded. In 2002, the GPFE and the Ministry of Education were amalgamated as a result of requests from both the general public and the government.^[1365]

The gender segregation of students prompted the growth of teacher and nursing training for women, but such segregation also had ramifications at institutions of higher education, which are also necessarily gender segregated. Until the 2010 foundation of the King Abdullah University, gender segregation prevailed in all tertiary institutions, and this remains the case for the overwhelming majority of institutions. The vast majority of the tertiary education providers are State institutions, these universities and similar State colleges do not possess any capital, nor do they accept revenues in their own right, and their finances are the responsibility of the government. The academic and administrative staffs are all civil servants. While UNESCO indicated that by 2003, there were some private tertiary education providers, with more planned,^[1366] another (domestic) source noted that there was just one private institution, the Arab Open University, affiliated with UK institutions.^[1367]

Men and women are generally strictly segregated in Saudi Arabia. There are very few exceptions (other than the King Abdullah University of Science and Technology, which opened in late 2009).^[1368] Men may, however, be allowed to teach women by closed circuit television at other institutions. Nevertheless, all the administrative and teaching staff of the girls’ colleges are women. As men and women in Saudi Arabia do not generally meet unrelated members of the other gender, meetings are never held between the male and female administrators, and all com­munication is carried out through two channels: by telephone and official letters. The resulting system of administration is highly bureaucratic.^[1369]

This research is not about stressing the patriarchal nature of Arab society in general and Saudi society in particular; rather, it is about explaining the consequences of excluding women from public life and constraining their educational choices. Women’s issues in Saudi society are often mistakenly connected to Islamic teaching, with a failure to distinguish between the teachings of Islam and the survival of pre-Islamic values or their re-emergence subsequent to the life of the Prophet.^[1370] Women’s issues in Saudi society and obvious gender inequalities in its educational system are institutionalised and difficult to dislodge through individual action. Women’s inequality is traditionally structured in the society. The rationale for needing to focus on women’s achievements in higher education is considered a key social development indicator that measures the status and condition of women in any country.^[1371]

IV.