Education for a Knowledge Society in Arabian Gulf Countries: Volume 24

This chapter presents a theoretical and evidence-based investigation of the contribution that national educational systems make to the development of and transition to a knowledge economy in the Arabian Gulf, generally, and Saudi Arabia, specifically. The challenges to creating an Arabian Gulf knowledge economy are twofold. One is a functional and structural challenge of developing a knowledge economy-oriented mass education system. The other is a cultural and contextual challenge of aligning Arabian Gulf expectations, traditions, and norms with institutionalized expectations for knowledge economies. The knowledge economy development challenge that is specific to national versus non-national Gulf populations, information and communication technology (ICT), and formal mass education systems is highlighted. The chapter concludes with a discussion of the role that national innovation systems play in knowledge economy development in the Arabian Gulf countries.

An effective language policy is of central importance in any educational reform endeavour. As the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) countries seek to foster the conditions for the creation and maintenance of knowledge societies, this chapter sets out to examine how language policy can be viewed from a philosophical perspective with reference to Islamic epistemic, ontological and axiological norms. The chapter contends at the outset that Muslim students and academics can suffer from pragmatic failure and cognitive dissonance if an effective language policy is not implemented that takes into account their philosophical disposition. A way to mitigate against this cognitive dissonance is explored, which would result in a language policy predicated on Islamic philosophical norms. A language policy thus articulated is viewed as a necessary precursor to the development of a knowledge society in Islamic countries.

This case study of the State of Qatar examines government educational policy and economic development in Qatar’s strategy to diversify its oil and gas-based economy into knowledge production. Qatar presents a particularly interesting case since its substantial investments in the past decade in education, Information and Communications Technologies (ICT), research and development (R&D), and coastal development and tourism are all highly intertwined both in practice and from a national policy perspective. Armed with billions of dollars of sovereign wealth funds (SWF) from its gas and oil industries, the government of Qatar has embarked on both domestic and overseas investment campaigns including education, sports, internet and telecommunications, healthcare, overseas land purchases (food security), cultural institutions and museums, increased desalinated water capacity, and coastal development and tourism projects. Education and research, most notably Qatar Foundation’s Education City, Qatar National Research Fund (QNRF), and the Qatar Science and Technology Park (QSTP), stand at the heart of Qatar’s investment in human development and long-term economic and social sustainability. Despite large outlays in knowledge economy initiatives, the country, however, is facing significant challenges in rapid population growth, reliance on expatriate labor for its skilled labor needs, an underdeveloped education system, and an undiversified economy which revolves around hydrocarbon rents.

The chapter explores the impact of the global knowledge economy upon education and social reform programmes in the Middle East. It highlights the difficulty of modifying school curricula to accord with a view of education which is based upon human capital formation coupled with standardised testing regimes designed to accommodate performativity; both of these phenomena being products of a neo-liberal agenda of the global north. The narrative considers the contrasting perspectives of regionally based Arab commentators, and it demonstrates the difficulty of reconciling the passionately held convictions of those who shun the modernist project with those who wish to embrace the democratic and social values of the global north. From his first-hand experience of government schools in the region, the author concludes with a plea for the formulation of education reforms which may succeed through more closely reflecting the cultural and educational traditions of the region rather than by the wholesale imposition of western values.

This study focuses on the historical and cultural contexts surrounding Kuwait’s education system and the government’s efforts to develop an entrepreneurial mindset. Primary and secondary sources and research in policy borrowing provide context to the problem of systemic change of an education system in a country that is trying to prepare its youth with the knowledge and skills necessary to succeed in the 21st century. The commitment to improvement is evident, but the question is whether the political, professional, and popular determination is enough to implement the changes into the system and internalize them for sustainable reform. A case can be made that repeated efforts at policy borrowing that resulted in failure to internalize reforms can be used as the impetus for real and sustainable change.

Education reform and policy formation have become national priorities in all of the Gulf States that make up the six member Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC). This move toward developing and sustaining effective education provision for the national citizenry gained greater importance in the wake of the Arab Spring movement that swept across the region. Although not as directly impacted as some other Arab nations further north, the leadership of Gulf States recognized that the large youth demographic in the region needed greater education and employment options, partly to stem the tide of unrest in their own nations. Many Gulf States, including the Kingdom of Bahrain, were already looking overseas for education models and systems that they could “buy-in” and implement in local schools. One such provider that seemed attractive to Bahrain, among others, was Singapore, which is widely hailed in the Gulf region as a model of a high-performing, global economy and education system. Yet importation of foreign models, with little or no accommodations made for local needs and cultures leads to an uncomfortable “grafting” of systems that seem out of place. This, coupled with the desire by Gulf States to take part in international benchmarking exercises, such as TIMSS, has created an awkward skewing in many educational practices and processes in Bahrain and other GCC states. This chapter, using Bahrain as a case study, will explore the regional importation of systems and models and the effect that participation in international assessments is having on localized education practices.

In the context of lifelong learning society, education experts pay more and more attention to online assessment (OLA) correlated with the concept of e-learning environment. This chapter builds upon these issues concerning the e-learning environment and the inevitable move to using OLA which is a natural outcome of the increasing use of information and communication technologies (ICTs) assisting in enhancing flexible learning and assessment.

The main purpose of this research is to (a) analyze the postgraduates’ perceptions toward OLA they had taken part in, and (b) identify if there are significant differences in these perceptions based on the variables of gender and skills of using ICTs. Subjects were postgraduate students of master third level enrolled in “Advanced seminar in Islamic Education” syllabus in Faculty of Education, Umm Al Qura University, K.S.A. The study used an e-questionnaire and semi-structured interviews to investigate postgraduate students’ attitudes and opinions about OLA.

The results of the study indicated highly positive perceptions of OLA. In addition, the study concluded that gender and ICTs familiarity significantly affect postgraduate students’ responses in most of the areas studied. The study recommended the necessity of implementing OLA culture as a way to the formation of the knowledge-based society.

In Egypt human capital is perceived as Egypt’s best resource, over 50% of Egypt’s population is under the age of 25. On its behalf, the Egyptian government has made a strong commitment to invest in education and to ensure that today’s students receive an education that will equip them to integrate in the Information Society (Ministry of Communications and Information Technology, 2006). Therefore, Egyptian students are expected to be taught the skills and obtain the necessary familiarity with the technologies so they can continually adapt to a work world of continuous technological innovations, and makes it easier for students to access knowledge.

The analysis of student teachers’ elaboration of their investment of ICTs either in academic or practical fields reveals that the effective integration of ICTs into Egyptian education is a complex, multifaceted process that involves not just technology competencies training but also curriculum and pedagogy revolution, institutional readiness, and well established and maintained infrastructure.

Educational achievement as measured by students’ performance in international tests is receiving scant attention in the educational research. The launch of these tests helped the educational community to better understand the factors underlying students’ achievement and guided the policy makers in their policies. However, Middle East and North African (MENA) countries were underrepresented in these discussions mainly because of data scarcity. Fortunately, Trends in International Mathematics and Science Study (TIMSS) 2007 data provides data for 15 MENA countries for students at the eighth grade and for many MENA countries; this is the first time that such data is available. This chapter aims to present estimates of students’ family background over mathematics and science scores. The results show that students with abundant home resources perform better than those with less home resources. Moreover, expatriate students in Gulf countries perform better than natives.

Education and human capital development are seen by the government of Saudi Arabia as vital to the aim of gaining knowledge economy status. Although financial investment has been evident in education and human capital development in Saudi Arabia for many years, knowledge acquisition, production, and diffusion remain problematic. The strategy that underpins the shift to a knowledge economy is based on the assumption drawn from human capital theory that education can transform individual productivity and therefore promote economic development. However, the links between education and economic growth are not as linear as this framing of education suggests, but depend on complex social processes. Within these processes, individual understandings of knowledge and knowledge creation are crucial. The implications of this for Saudi Arabia are discussed with reference to the work of Knorr Cetina (2007) on knowledge cultures and David and Foray (2002) on knowledge communities. A transition to a knowledge economy is more likely to occur when cultural and social conditions enable the development of knowledge cultures and knowledge communities.

Qatar’s higher education system is growing rapidly, as science in the Islamic world witnesses a contemporary renaissance. Steering a course toward becoming a “knowledge society,” Qatar and other countries in the Arabian Gulf region are now home to dozens of universities. The establishment of many international offshore, satellite, or branch campuses further emphasizes the international dynamism of higher education development there. The remarkable expansion of higher education in Qatar builds upon unifying two distinct strategies, both prevalent in capacity-building attempts worldwide. First, Qatar seeks to cultivate human capital domestically through massive infrastructure investment and development of educational structures, including Qatar University. Second, Qatar seeks to match the strongest global universities through direct importation of existing organizational capacity, faculty and staff, and accumulated reputation. Local capacity in higher education and scientific productivity is built simultaneously with the ongoing borrowing of ideas and talent from different regions of the world. The relative youth of the higher education system and the state’s small geographic and demographic size are being compensated by considerable investments in the standard-bearing university – a national university taking root – simultaneously with hosting branches of eminent foreign higher education institutions, mainly on the Education City campus. Exemplifying extreme glocalization and mondialisation, Qatar has become a regional hub, bridging the traditional university strongholds in the West and the rising powerhouses in the East.

The development of a knowledge society in the Arabian Gulf is a nested and contextualized process that relies upon the development of nation-specific knowledge economies and region-wide knowledge cultures. The role of internationally comparative education data and mass education systems in the Gulf as mechanisms for the development of knowledge economies, societies, and cultures are discussed and debated in relation to the unique contextual conditions countries operate within. The role of “big” data and mass education in creating expectations for achievement, accountability, and access is shown to significantly contribute to the development of knowledge societies by providing the infrastructure and capacity for sustainable change, which potentially leads to the institutionalization of knowledge acquisition, exchange, and creation in the Gulf and beyond.