More Leadership Positions for Women in Saudi Education
Ministry
Arab News - 01 October, 2006
More women are expected to occupy top positions in the
Ministry of Education and the integration of the girls and boys
administrations, procedures and curriculum is also planned, according to
Dr. Samia Binladen, assistant director general of girls education
administration in Jeddah.
Dr. Binladen was promoted to the job
over a month ago and is the first woman to hold such a position in the
Western Province. In a roundtable discussion with journalists yesterday,
she talked about her new duties, new projects and future
expectations.
She explained, “My new job gives me authority over
ten basic areas that include planning and development of the education
system, teachers and student affairs in these administrations. We hope and
expect that the number of women in leadership positions in the ministry
will increase but we have to prove ourselves and be worthy of our leaders’
confidence and support of us.”
The changes in the ministry’s
policies about involving women are in line with the king’s approval of
activating a code of ethics for the teaching profession. “There is a plan
and continuous campaign for activating the code and we are considering
holding a conference involving all the parties concerned. The goal is
increasing the teachers’ loyalty to the profession and providing her with
guidelines on how to improve herself and develop her skills,” said Dr.
Binladen. The code covers not only the teachers but also parents, school
environment, curriculum and everything related to the education process.
Dr. Binladen also talked about the changes introduced this year in
the student evaluation system. The continuous evaluation system that has
been implemented in grades one to three and is being expanded to cover all
six years of elementary education aims to develop critical thinking.
“We have achieved about 80 percent training of supervisors and
teachers in the elementary level and by next week, the figure will be 100
percent. There is some misunderstanding and apprehension by parents about
this now because it is new but it has been studied and tested and is more
effective,” she said. Many parents wonder about the effect the system will
have on their children when they move to the next level which still
follows the traditional system. Dr. Binladen says that a comprehensive
project for the intermediate level is being studied which will be
implemented at the right time.
“There is a pioneer project to unify
the work and policies of the boys and girls sectors and create a job
description guide because there are differences between the systems and
curriculums in the boys and girls administrations,” she said. Asked if
this meant physical education would be introduced in girls’ schools, she
said she had no comment on the subject.
Other new projects include
the electronic archiving of all teachers’ files. In Jeddah the archiving
will be completed in six months whereupon teachers can access their files
using an ID number. Dr. Binladen has also opened a new teachers’ training
center in southern Jeddah in an effort to focus and improve conditions in
a part of the city which has been neglected.
One of the recurring
problems with no solution in sight is that of women teachers posted to
schools in remote villages and the hardships they face on the road,
especially with frequent reports of fatal and horrendous accidents. Dr.
Binladen said the accidents were unfortunate and she sympathized with
teachers and their families but the decision of where to post them or to
transfer them to another school is with the ministry.
One solution
that the ministry has insisted on this year is to staff the remote schools
with teachers from those areas rather than from the city, but Dr. Binladen
pointed out that there is also a problem in meeting the schools’ needs for
teachers of particular subjects.
Another problem is that of old
rented school buildings that are unfit to be schools; some are dangerous
and unsafe. For the past four years, the ministry has followed a system of
double shifts — one in the morning and one in the evening — in suitable
schools while buildings are being renovated or constructed according to
specific standards.
It seems that this will continue for another
year, according to Dr. Binladen, but the ministry has plans to phase out
rented buildings within seven years by which time all school buildings
will be owned by the ministry.
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