Today, Kuwait‟s education system is larger than ever. In 2011 there were 564,426 students registered in Kuwaiti schools, of which 370,989 were non-Kuwait students and 193,437 Kuwaiti. Many Kuwaitis choose not to send their children to government schools, but enrol them in private schools instead (Educational Statistical Group, 2011). There are numerous private schools in Kuwait, many of them have foreign sponsors and are co-educational. The Bayan Bilingual School, the American School of Kuwait, the American International School, the British School of Kuwait, and the French School are several of the many prestigious private schools available to the Kuwaiti population. Private education is not wholly funded by the government, although it is generously subsidized. The Kuwaiti government pours more than KD 5.6 million per annum into private educational facilities in addition to allotting land for school construction and distributing textbooks. Unlike the mostly co-ed private schools, Kuwaiti public schools are segregated by sex beginning in the first grade.
Women are granted the same rights to education as men and the Ministry of Education has worked to further the education of women through various programmes such as a 1989
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initiative to establish daytime literacy clinics for women. The Kuwaiti government ensures that each new school contains a library and has expanded the collection of books in existing school libraries from 230,000 (before the Iraqi invasion) to more than 3 million today. The government has also launched an „Education Net‟ project in order to connect every government school and library in Kuwait with a telecommunications data network (Educational Statistical Group, 2011).
There is a fairly wide choice of schools in Kuwait, although state (i.e. government-funded) schools are not usually an option for foreign children. These are attended by local and expatriate Arabs, who share culture, language and religion. The private sector provides for the expatriate communities, and its schools are generally of a reasonable standard, especially for elementary education. However, the secondary education of expatriate children is sometimes better provided for in their home country, where they may be sent to board.
The Ministry of Education controls standards in the state schools and has some influence over the establishment, legitimacy and running of those in the private sector, in some instances stipulating that school hours and days match those of the state schools (Fahad, 2008).
5.4.1.Educational Stages
Kuwait‟s Council of Ministers approved, in its session No. 4/824, the amendment of educational stages (4-4-4, elementary, intermediate, and secondary) for the three educational stages and established new educational stage, i.e. 5-4-3.
The previous educational stages (4-4-4) had been applied since 1956. The new educational stages shown in Table 16 have been applied starting from the school year 2005/2006 (Ahmad, 2009).
Table 16.
New Educational Stages of Schools in Kuwait
Stages Years Kindergarten Elementary Stage Intermediate Stage Secondary Stage Age 4 yrs 5 yrs 6 yrs 7 yrs 8 yrs 9 yrs 10 yrs 11 yrs 12 yrs 13 yrs 14 yrs 15 yrs 16 yrs 17 yrs Actual period Two years Five years Four years Three years
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The most important reasons for the change to the new educational stages (5-4-3) are:
i. Realize educational and learning harmony between development and modernization initiatives targeting all aspects of the educational process including study plans, curricula, books and new educational systems such as standardization of educational system in secondary stage, which is applied starting from the school year 2005/2006; ii. The learner‟s development characteristics have been taken into consideration in
different age categories, i.e. childhood stage, adolescence stage and youth stage, providing children in elementary stage with a learning environment consistent with late childhood that is often defined to range between six and eleven years. This phase has clear psychological, mental, physical and social development characteristics;
iii. Provide appropriate school environment for each development stage in terms of its curricula, facilities and scopes of activity assisting students in this stage with integrated comprehensive development without the suffering resulting in negative impacts on the child‟s psychological and physical health from moving to the intermediate stage at a younger age as it was in the previous educational stage (Jaber &Ahmad, 2007);
iv. Under the new educational stages (5-4-3), elementary stage pupils have the opportunity to gain command of basic learning skills in different study fields such as memorization skills, reading and writing skills, written and oral expression, working through consistent group and practice of a variety of social activities in harmony with their development stage. This provides students with opportunities for success in the intermediate stage;
v. An extra year was added to the obligatory education of elementary and intermediate stages to become nine years (five years in elementary stage and four years in intermediate stage) from eight years only in the previous stage;
vi. This new stage helps the student who completes the intermediate stage to select properly the type of secondary education that satisfies their tendencies and matches their abilities after becoming quite mature following nine years of education in elementary and intermediate stages. This protects students from failure that certain
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students in the first secondary stage suffered under the previous system which represented in high failure rate and dropout from education at the beginning of secondary education. This constituted a waste of educational expenditure and a waste of human energy as a result of dropout and failure to complete secondary education; vii. It provides a suitable opportunity for accommodating all output of the intermediate
stage given several paths available in the secondary stage for academic education in parallel with another path, i.e. vocational and technical education. Therefore, all students can be qualified to continue their education, on the one hand, and ready to join the employment market for those so desiring, on the other hand, particularly since Kuwait lacks qualified national cadres in middle technical manpower; and
viii. Through this new stage, Kuwait has kept abreast with advanced educational systems at regional or international levels, which proved to be effective and successful in qualifying learners according to the requirements of societies in which the more advanced educational stages, i.e. 6-3-3 and 5-4-3, have been applied (Salem, 2009). Educational systems around the world are continuously changing and developing backed by pedagogy and psychology, and supported by experience. Kuwait is in the process of comprehensive reform of its educational system in order to cope with globalization era and be open to all new developments the developing countries strive to adopt in order to retain their place in the course of civilization and advancement.
The Ministry prepared all requirements for applying this new educational stage, particularly new classrooms in the elementary schools to accommodate the fifth-grade students in the same building where they study; educational facilities necessary for this new development such as science labs and computers etc., and provision of teachers capable of desirable educational performance in view of this development; in addition, school books, teaching aids and technologies associated with the new curricula and new education stage.
All stages of state education, including higher education, are free. There are two main ministries involved in the development of the education sector: the Ministry of Education and the Ministry of Higher Education. There are about 1381 schools in Kuwait, at all stages from kindergarten to secondary; 422 boys‟ schools and 959 girls‟ schools. The total number of
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students in the Al-Farwanyah Province is 71,39, and this is the province of the selected sample of current study (Education Statistical Group, 2012).
Two-thirds of all students (from kindergarten to secondary) were in public schools during the year ending 2010. Most Kuwaitis study in public schools. The private schools are split about equally between Arabic medium schools, which follow Kuwait‟s national curriculum, and foreign language schools, which follow other curricula (e.g., American, British, French and Indian). There are currently 591,359 students registered in Kuwait‟s schools, which make up approximately 25 percent of the entire population. Between 2006 and 2011 there was a substantial increase in the number of teachers, compared with the growth in student numbers, especially at the elementary stage. In the year ending 2011 there was an increase of 24 percent in elementary school teachers despite a decrease in student registrations. A large proportion of public school teachers are Kuwaiti females, particularly at the elementary stage. Only 4 percent of women teachers are older than 45 years, in comparison with 35 percent of non-Kuwaiti males (Education Statistical Group, 2011).
In the next part, I will present details of the educational stages. 5.4.1.1. Kindergarten and Elementary Stage
In Kuwait, schooling usually begins at the age of six. Kindergarten (pre-school) education is also available to children from four to six years. Under the new system, elementary education will begin at the age of five years.
There is the option at this stage of attending one of the private schools, which have foreign sponsors and mostly offer co-education, whereas the Kuwaiti public schools are segregated by gender starting at the elementary stage. Examples of private foreign schools in Kuwait are the Bayan Bilingual School, the American School of Kuwait, the New English School (Kuwait), the American International School of Kuwait, the Kuwait English School, the French School and the Canadian School of Kuwait (CSK). Most of the private schools are subsidized by the state. In 2009, the elementary gross registration rate was 98.5 percent. The gender parity index, which is the ratio of female registration to male registration, was 0.98. This shows parity in gender for enrolmentat elementary stage. The percentage of Kuwaitis studying in private schools in kindergarten is 20 percent. The Kuwaiti government puts about KD 5.6 million per annum into private educational facilities, in addition to allocating land for school construction
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and paying for the distribution of books. The Kuwait government also ensures that each school is equipped with a library. The government is promoting the use of information technology at school stage. The launch of the 'Education Net' project is a manifestation of that, as it connects every government school and library in Kuwait with a telecommunications data network (Alya, 2010).
5.4.1.2. Intermediate and Secondary Stages
Students are required to spend four years at the intermediate stage, up to grade 9, after which they move on to the secondary stage. Secondary education is for three years, after which students can take the higher education track by entering university or gaining admission into a vocational college to study for technical or vocational qualifications. The secondary education system is being standardized from the present academic and credit system to a single system. The application of this new organization started during the academic year 2005/06. Moreover, the percentage of Kuwaiti nationals in private schools at the secondary stage is between 8 and 12 percent. Registration rates at the secondary stage have been rising since 2000, except for the period 2005/06, when the education stages system changed from four years at each education stage to 5-4-3 years. Today, the Ministry of Education is improving the quality of the education system. Girls outperform boys in every subject of the twelfth-grade examinations, particularly in philosophy, English, Arabic languages, chemistry, physics, mathematics and biology. International indicators such as the trends in international mathematics and science study and progress in international reading literacy study are not very encouraging. Special attention is being given to reducing repetition and dropout rates (Kuwait Education Indicators Report, 2007). The Ministry of Education in Kuwait is also trying to adopt the use of information technology (ICT) in schools by including e-learning in the curriculum. In Kuwait there are also religious institutes which offer a programme of general education at the intermediate and secondary stages. There were 1226 students in the seven religious centres in 2009/2010, of which 75 percent were Kuwaiti nationals. The Ministry of Education in Kuwait is making efforts to provide equal educational opportunities by opening special needs institutes. In total there are 44 special needs schools out of which 33 are public schools and 11 are private schools. Some of the special needs children are also registered in special needs classes offered in general schools (Alya, 2010).
5.4.2. Vocational, Post-Secondary and Tertiary Education
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Authority for Applied Education and Training(PAAET), a state institution, and degree programmes offered by Kuwait University, and a small number of private universities (Educational Statistical Group, 2011). The Government of Kuwait is encouraging its citizens to take vocational training programmes in order to fulfil the demand for a skilled workforce. Students registering for vocational training at PAAET can join programmes after elementary, intermediate or secondary school, although the majority of students, about 70 percent, are registered having completed secondary education. In 2009/10 there were 14,285 students registered in post-secondary training courses, of which 62 percent were female. The total number of students in vocational training at PAAET increased by 8 percent from the previous year. The male enrolment decreased by 10 percent whereas the female enrollment increased by 42 percent. This substantial increase was due to the introduction of new vocational programmes in line with the demands of the female students. Post-secondary education includes courses at a PAAET technical college lasting for two and a half years, following which the students receive a certificate that is less than a tertiary diploma, but does allow the graduates to enter the workforce (Alya, 2010).
5.4.3. Higher Education
There are four state-supported higher education institutions in Kuwait: i. Kuwait University;
ii. The College of Basic Education in PAAET;
iii. Higher Institute for Theatre Arts and Music Arts; and iv. Other Institutions.
In the academic year 2009/2010, the total registration within these institutions reached 29,308 students, an increase of 7 percent from the previous year. The proportion of females in the undergraduate studies is 70 percent. The gross registration ratio in tertiary education in both private and public institutions in 2006 was about 18 percent; the male gross registration ratio was 11 percent, a slight increase from the previous year, and for females it was 26 percent, a three percentage point decrease from the previous year (Mohammad, 2011).
5.4.3.1. Kuwait University
Kuwait has only one state university, which is called Kuwait University. The Kuwaiti government provides several scholarship schemes for its nationals, either through Kuwait
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University, the Ministry of Higher Education, or Kuwait Institute for Scientific Research. Hence, although it is a small country, it has a big proportion of its students to travel abroad for their higher studies, firstly because they can afford to do so and secondly in order to benefit from the higher status and the prestige of overseas qualifications. Hence many students are sent to other countries such as Australia, Canada, USA, France, and Switzerland...etc. Kuwait University was established in 1966. It is a co-educational institution and which includes five campuses in. The number of students has increased considerably, from 400 at its inception to 22,919 in 2009/2010. It offers a wide range of academic courses (Salem, 2011).
5.4.3.2. The College of Basic Education in PAAET
The Public Authority for Applied Education and Training was established in 1982 to fill the need for a vocational and technical training institution. PAAET has two missions: PAAET is responsible for providing and developing the skills of the national labour force in order to meet the demands of a developing nation, and it provides training to students to have careers beyond the oil industry. The College of Basic Education in PAAET, with an enrolment of 7132, enjoyed an increase of 26 percent from the previous year.
5.4.3.3. Higher Institute for Theatre Arts and Music Arts
With a total registration of 765 students in 2010, this represents a decline of 25 percent from 2009 (Rashed, 2010).
5.4.3.4. Other Institutions
There are also a number of post-secondary institutions in Kuwait that are approved by the Ministry of Higher Education:
i. Gulf University for Science and Technology; ii. Arab Open University;
iii. Australian College of Kuwait; iv. American University of Kuwait;
v. Gulf American College;
vi. Kuwait-Maastricht Business School; vii. Box-Hill College Kuwait; and
viii. American University in the Middle East.
The largest private institution for undergraduate studies is the Arab Open University, which had 7294 students in 2011 and which accounts for nearly 60 percent of all private undergraduate
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students. Kuwaiti students make up 53 percent of all undergraduate registration in private institutions (Mohammad, 2011).