Female Higher education represents a unique category within the higher
education system of the Kingdom. That is the case due to the female higher
education privacy, capabilities required, facilities, and output. Because of the
comprehensiveness of issues in other parts of this study, more concentration
should be bestowed here to the characteristics and special cases that
distinguish female education from male education considering all prospects of
higher education which are not discussed by other tracks of this study.
Female higher education should be evaluated from a point of view that considers
it in general as a unique issue. Uniqueness comes from female education
specialty, issues, requirements, and reflections on the higher education system
at large. The basic step in the process of female education quantitative and
qualitative development should evolve from diagnosing the current and future
prospects, defining the challenges and opportunities, pinpointing the weaknesses
and strengths, and representing a vision for the future of demand and supply of
graduates both currently and on the long term.
This study –in general- aims at shedding the light on the specific issues
characterizing this category of education. The study should define the existing
capabilities and foreseeing which is acceptable for the future in order to
actively participate in preparing females to practice the jobs and meet their
requirements with high levels of competency. In addition, this study should
achieve a number of additional objectives, represented in the following:
1. Diagnosing female education’s characterizing issues and evaluating their
performance in light of active participation in female habitation in the context
of her special role in the Kingdom.
2. Evaluating the existing capabilities of female education in connection to all
related aspects namely: organizational, administrative, procedural, human and
financial resources, effective variables, output compliance to development
needs, academic and professional accreditation, weaknesses and strengths, and
challenges and opportunities.
3. Developing means and mechanisms for comprehensive development of female
education in order to promote the process of her habilitation in a manner that
enables her to actively and professionally participate in the development
process, with considerable care to the special role played by women in the
Kingdom.
4. Foreseeing the future role of woman participation in community development
and her active participation under the Islamic Sharia’a laws in meeting job
market demands as well as for private job initiatives. That should consider
enhancing her role to eliminate weakening sides affecting full partnership in
light of technical and social developments.
5. Proposing the required mechanisms and methodologies that should promote the
effectiveness of graduate studies and scientific research in female education
institutes. That should address these issues possible interaction horizons and
integration areas both currently and in the future for better serving of
development and educational processes.
The scope of this study and its aspects comprise the following:
1. Studying, evaluating, and looking into development opportunities of the
internal efficiency of female higher education system in light of the existing
situation and the future needed in terms of human resources, organization,
infrastructure, and other effective parameters.
2. Studying, evaluating, and looking into development opportunities of the
compliance of the output of female higher education system to current and future
job market demands.
3. Evaluating the current position of training, rehabilitation, and continued
education programs; and foreseeing opportunities for promoting the external
efficiency of female higher education in light of the continuing enhancements of
the role of women in the Kingdom’s economic and social development.
4. Studying the quantitative and qualitative requirements of the job market to
define the needed levels and majors of female higher education.
5. Reviewing and evaluating the effectiveness of laws, regulations, policies and
financial resources of the female higher education system. That should include
the development of all of these fields to promote the system and further enhance
its effectiveness.
6. Reviewing and evaluating the processes of graduating teachers with a review
of the infrastructure and organizational capabilities of the female higher
education establishments.
7. Analyzing the effect of male and/or female management of female higher
education; and evaluating the suitability of this issue in connection to the
internal efficiency of the systems and the effect of that on the compliance with
market demands.
8. Conducting an analytical study to evaluate the role of woman in the community
and the private sector in accordance with Islamic Sharia’a laws and as
stipulated by government guidelines. Strengths should be enhanced to eliminate
weaknesses in this regard to meet technical, social, and economic developments.
9. Evaluating the effectiveness of graduate programs for female higher
education; and exploring avenues for cooperation with similar programs for male
higher education to broaden integration horizons both for now in the future.
10. Reviewing the academic and professional accreditation mechanisms; and
looking into opportunities for their development in serving the educational and
research processes.
The study requires making available data and information pertaining to the
female higher education showing the influence of female secondary education and
addressing the future ambitions and transformations that could affect the
process as a result of social and economic developments, job market demands, and
development needs. These data and information should be presented to Aafaq
officials. These requirements should include:
1. Specifying in order of importance all the variables and parameters related to
the specialty of female education.
2. Collecting the required information from the primary and secondary sources;
and convening specializing related seminars, workshops, and brainstorming
sessions.
3. Processing and analyzing the collected data to appraise the behavior and
effect of the variables on this category of education; along with resulting
projections of interest of this study.
4. Evaluating the existing self and competition situation through analytical and
diagnostic reviews that will enable the isolation of causes for challenges,
phenomena, directions, and compliance with development needs both for now and in
the future.
5. Developing reference criteria and guidelines for comparison of the position
of female higher education both internally and externally, and defining
weaknesses and strengths, challenges and opportunities, importance order of
strategic issues, and the strategic alternatives (with feasibility studies), to
achieve periodical and strategic objectives of the long term higher education
plan.
6. Developing standardized criteria for evaluating the suitability of the
organizational hierarchy, infrastructure, resources, and the current educational
process; and suggesting mechanisms for upgrading their respective efficiency and
upgrading scientific and R&D activities.
7. Designing and proposing the referenced academic and professional
accreditation processes.
8. Specifying means for the quantitative and qualitative development of female
higher education.
9. Reviewing and analyzing international experiences in this field to extract
the conclusions and determine what is applicable for the Kingdom’s case.
10. Including total quality parameters and criteria in designing all aspects of
this study.
11. Concluding scientific and practical outcomes of this study.
This study should present a comprehensive report that includes the following:
1. An executive summary of the study.
2. A documentation of all reference information included in the study.
3. The results of analytical studies conducted on similar models from different
countries, showing success and/or failure causes.
4. Highlights of the outcomes of meetings with focus groups, general seminars,
brainstorming seminars, workshops, etc.
5. The results of studying and evaluating the possibilities of promoting the
internal efficiency of female higher education and the comparison of that to
similar systems in other countries, to enhance the efficiency of the system and
to make its output compliant to development demands.
6. Defining the effective issues in female higher education and evaluating the
efficacy of the educational environment and organizational means both currently
and in the future.
7. Pinpointing strengths and weaknesses, available opportunities, diagnosed
challenges, and the required success factors.
8. Predicting the directions of female higher education in the future in
guidance of the features and capabilities of similar international systems.
9. Proposing mechanisms and applicable means for executing the options for the
effective development of female higher education.
10. Determining the needed methods of execution, budgets, temporal plan,
execution responsibilities, training requirements, changing demands, and other
technical parameters that affect the performance of the admission and capacity
operation.
11. Listings of guiding indices and evaluation criteria for female higher
education with the means for academic and professional accreditation processes
required for enhancing the quantitative and the qualitative content of female
higher education in the Kingdom.
12. Proposals of various scenarios required to develop female higher education
establishments in the Kingdom with specific reviews of important issues for
discussion according to levels of importance. This approach should be associated
with the required means for achievement of success and the required benchmarking
procedures that define academic and professional accreditation criteria.
13. Strategic alternatives designed to achieve the objectives and purposes of
the long term higher education plan, their feasibility, and their applicability
in connection to female higher education.
14. Scientific conclusions and recommendations required to build a long term
strategic plan for female higher education, as part of the strategic plan for
university education in the kingdom.
