DIFFERENT STRATEGIES FOR INCREASING HIGHER EDUCATION ACCESS
Dr. Mohammed A. Al
Saleh
Asst. Professor Department of Higher Education & President of the
Department of Curriculam & Teaching Methods, College of Education Al Jouf
University, KSA.
Introduction
Morley,
Leach and Lugg (2009) argued that value to the society is added by higher
education as they both serve as ‘‘both a public and private good – public
because it contributes to society and private because it has potential to
benefit the individual.” The importance of higher education with respect to the
society cannot be assumed as it acts as an economically developed feature for
the community and provides the individual with personal benefits. Higher
education is needed in order to generate and produce productive citizens
(Giroux, 2002). Higher education enables individual and communal development
and provides an individual awareness of social issues and is considered to be
an effective source in order to address the related issues of nation-states.
There is an article related to the enhancement of higher studies in the
24th Report of the Investment Climate in Arab Countries (2008),
which explains the significance of higher studies of Arab citizens. It
identifies that there were only two hundred and thirty three universities in
2003 which have been raised to three hundred eighty five in 2008. This figure
includes one hundred and fifteen private universities which is 4. 4 times
greater than the number of private institutions in 1993. It is understood that
the private institutions have been developed and their figure is equivalent to
that of government institutions. But this growth can’t represent their
facilities, as most of these institutions have low facilities. The report
suggested that the enhancement of employment in the private institutions will
increase the number of pupil in the private higher institutions equivalent to
that of government institutes. This decision is based on the idea of many Arab
countries, which would like to reduce the expenditure on higher studies and to
reduce the number of pupil enrolled in government institutes.
This paper delves into aspects which identify possible measures
associated with provision of strategic access to higher education in Arab
countries in general and Saudi Arabia in particular.
Need for better strategies in Saudi Arabia
Saudi Arabia is a nation which was established in 1932 by King Abdul
Aziz. It has an area of 900,000 square miles. The country is inhabited by 26
million people and is today sending more than 80,000 students to different
countries like Australia, Europe and United States in order to pursue their
higher education. They are investing more than 50 billion in order to
completely revamp their higher education system and their currently existing 25
universities.
Saudi Arabia has invested more than one fourth of its budget during 2009
for education and training. This was done in order to highlight the investment
made on the human resource development to be a key aspect for the knowledge
based development in the country. Saudi Arabia has been estimated to be
investing rapidly on higher education for past few years under the control of
King Abdullah. From the yearly budget one fourth of the investment are made for
education and training. In 2010 the investment was estimated to be increased to
36.5 billion USD which represents a 12.4% increase when compared to that of
2009. Under the influence of King Abdullah Scholarship Program, more than
90,000 Saudis were presented with opportunities to pursue their graduate
studies abroad.
The main objective of the development plan is to increase the number of
university students from 860,000 to 1.7 million within 2014. The king and his
fellowmen provide high importance to the higher education to be provided to the
students of Saudi Arabia. Most of the students of Saudi universities pursue
their graduate studies in various fields like social studies, religious,
history, and literature regardless of the labor market being saturated with
social science and humanities majors.
Importance Of Identifying Strategies For Higher Education
In recent years, the stratification researchers are attracted towards
understanding the impact of structural characteristics of educational system on
outcomes and results of students (Kerckhoff, 1995; Treiman &
Ganzeboom, 2000). Most of the studies and research consider for the
cross-national studies that deals with relation between educational system and
labor market. There are studies that compare the educational system of Japan
and America that reveals that students’ job attainment and obtaining features
are influenced by separate relationship with respect to labor market (Rosenbaum
& Kariya, 1989; Rosenbaum, Kariya, Settersten, & Maier, 1990).
From the comparative research conducted by Shavit and Muller (1998) it
is evident that there is variation in educational qualification based on
occupational outcomes based on countries. The variation is detailed by the
characteristics features of educational system. For instance, the magnitude of
educational effects on occupational outcomes is influenced by stratification
and vocational specificity of educational system in Arab countries. At the same
time these effects are overcome by the number of students in tertiary
education. Shavit and Blossfeld (1993) made an analysis in 13 different
countries in order to determine if the expansion of educational system reduces
the gap in educational achievement of students from different socioeconomic
context. The study of Shavit, Arumand Gamoran (2007) analyzed the impact of
characteristics of educational system on higher education entrance and
particular types of institutions in it. By analyzing 15 countries Arum, Gamoran
and Shavit (2007) concluded variation in distinct educational structures based
on access to higher education that is determined as binary, stratified and
unitary. The study also emphasizes the importance of differentiation and
privatization in structuring access to higher education. Thus it can be
established that there is a definitive gap in access to higher education. The
following sections detail the main challenges which Saudi Arabia currently face
in order to implement strategies which improve access to higher education.
Relevance of the study
Education has been represented as a drive to speed up the alterations,
improvement and advancement and it is responsible for ‘‘a radical revision of
education systems in Arab countries” (United Nations Development
Program’s Arab Human Development Report, 2002). This report represents the
deprived value as ‘‘the Achilles heel of education in the Arab world”. This
article also insists to implement the remedies like ‘‘enhancing human
capabilities, creating strong synergy between education and the socio-economic
system, and formulating a programme for education reform at the
pan-Arab level.” Though there is an elevated proportion of spending on
education, many of the higher education institutes are running out of money.
There is a relationship between the inadequate facilities in the higher
education institutes of Saudi Arabia and restricted expenditures of government.
As the country is found to have one of the largest youth population and
because of the enduring technical rebellion around the globe the problems in
higher education are becoming worse. As the number of youngsters is high, the
necessity to focus on higher studies is also high.
Challenges faced in identifying access to higher education Quality
Over the years it is observed that a large number of students who have
identified the need to enter the higher education system have faced a large
amount of pressure. This is because the system is absorbing a large number of
students into their folds when compared to the previous decade. This has
therefore resulted in increasing pressure across all universities across the
country to focus on improving the number of seats available. However this had
strained the availability of resources for focusing on measures related to
promotion of quality. There has been effort made which help in improving the
overall rates of higher education enrollment there is a big gap in the
development of life skills among personnel. Hence one big challenge which needs
to be acknowledged and dealt with in terms of promotion of strategies is to
identify measures which help in increasing the quality of education which when
compared to standards at an international level are not up to the mark.
The large number of students who have sought entry
into the tertiary system in the last decade has put incredible pressure on
higher education systems across the region. Efforts to absorb these students
and to widen overall access have strained government resources and led to a
focus on expanding quantity rather than quality. Despite successful efforts to
increase higher education enrollment, enrollment ratios are still low in Saudi,
and the regional average is still low by international standards.
There is a great deal of need for better information with regards to the
actual process which happens in education. This involves identifying possible
methods of data collection by which information from different institutions
across the country is collected. This involves starting and identifying
possible profiles of students who are graduating in a manner that progress can
be assessed. There should also be measures implemented in order to benchmark
the results which are arrived at. These results should be taken into account
when future education strategies are implemented and arrived while promoting
higher education.
The second aspect which needs to be concentrated on is identifying
strategic measures to improve the method of evaluation among universities. When
higher education is considered it can be seen that monitoring and evaluation of
higher education should be presented in a manner that outcome measures can be
identified. It is important for faculty to be evaluated by peers as well as
students.
The most important challenge which institutions would face is to
identify the possible impact quality would have on cost. If the higher
education providing institutions are public institutions then governmental
funding becomes vital to promote internal quality assurance.
Governance
One challenge which prevents access to higher
education is related to structures of governance. The higher education
institutions in this country are run as extensions of governmental
organizations. There is lack of autonomy and transparency in educational
institutions in the country. The governance measures associated with regulation
of public sector institutions is found to highly rigid in nature. This makes it
difficult for universities to present measures which respond to the needs of students,
faculties as well as those desiring access to higher education.
Another problem associated with implementing better access to higher
education is related to lack of measures to implement changes. The government
run bureaucracies are in control of instructional and curriculum design,
increasing the availability of seats, teacher certification, examination
patterns and approving new degrees.
Opportunities in the job market:
Perhaps the biggest challenge any country faces identifies with possible
outcomes of the higher education. It is well established that the linkage
between higher education access and the subsequent availability of possible
employment in the local employment market is very important. Despite the
growing attention given in Arab higher education system on importance of
relevance of education in improving real life skills and knowledge and research
to be implemented in labour market, there is still a gap. If this challenge is
addressed then it becomes possible to ensure access to more students who are
willing to wait to get into better jobs.
Strategies to improve access to higher education:
Strategies to improve faculty:
Traditional faculty roles are shifting or ‘‘unbundling’’
There is huge variation in the task completed by the faculty of modern
world and professors of past years. Instead of assigning the task to particular
person or employee, the universities are attempting to segment the task to
certain specialized groups or team (Paulson, 2002). The process of segmentation
of employees or labor makes use of non tenure track in order to determine the
positions in different methods. Generally graduates are determined to occupy
the position and in some cases undergraduate assistants enabling the highly
trained faculty to increase their focus on areas of research (Paulson, 2002).
In order to satisfy the responsibility of their roles, distance education
faculty are considered to be involved with instructional designers, assistants,
technologists, graphic and media artists, and other faculty (Miller,
2001). Hence the professors should be able to adapt to a more industrialized,
educational model. If this happens there is availability of greater number of
qualified personnel to teach making it easier for universities to increase the number
of seats available.
The need for faculty development, support, and training is growing
In order to promote access to higher education there is a need for
faculty development, support and training. The adaptation from a traditional to
a modernized instructional method would definitely promote ease of access.
Therefore it is vital for faculty to identify and develop new competencies.
This can be carried out by ensuring that there is extensive and continuous
training. One effective measure in this regard would be the integration of
technology with the instructions presented. Green (2002) identified that the
promotion of strategic education access to students is strongly dependent on
the integration of technology into instructional design. He further adds that this
is the largest disadvantage which is currently faced by different universities.
Another study by the Educause Current Issues Committee (2003) identified
that to improve the degree of education and the accessibility of students
faculty support is vital. The support and training of faculty in IT related
issues was found to be one of the highest strategic concerns for universities.
There has been reluctance among faculty in a number of regions across the world
with regards to use of these modern tools. Dasher-Alston and Patton (1998)
identified that most faculty in developing and developed regions across the
world preferred methods of teaching involving traditional face to face
measures. This has made a number of them feel distance education training is unnecessary.
This is not true. Today if better access needs to be provided to more number of
students for higher education modern day tools and technologies need to promote
in order to reach students in remote corners of the country.
Campus strategies
The following strategies can be adopted to promote better access to
higher education:
• Academic/Instructional
strategies: A number of academic strategies can be promoted by using measures
promoting peer tutoring and mentoring. Apart from this the colleges can make an
effort to present educational coaching by promoting implementation of universal
design for learning. It is also important to provide support in the form of
advisory functions related to the product. It is also vital to present measures
to share information using databases which would help promote better
professional development (Hart & Grigal, 2010).
• Employment/Career
strategies: This is an important strategic maneuver to be adopted. When
students are aware that practicum and internships are available it would raise
awareness of available career options and will also ensure that students are
willing to present better efforts towards improving their grades. There should
be a system maintained which presents access and roles for employers, business
leaders and others in the business arena (Hart & Grigal, 2010).
• Social
Strategies: This revolves around identification of measures to inform existing
students and potential students about information on campus clubs and social
activities. This will motivate students to join universities to gain the
experience (Rose & Meyer, 2002). There should also be promotion of students
to serve in leadership positions in clubs and organizations. These students can
then make academic outreach programs and arrive at possible measures to invite
diverse range of students to participate in academic programs.
• Transitional
program related strategies: For academically challenged students who enter the
university there should be promotion of transitional programs. These programs
will ensure that the students do not feel out of place at universities. This
should be presented in a social and academically integrated manner (Zeff,
2007). It should also be done by providing students with possible choice of
enrollment in classes which are organized at time which enables them to work.
The presence of possible methods like presentation of educational support by
including universal course design, academic and social mentoring and peer
tutoring will help in facilitation of student retention and advancement (Thoma
et al.، 2009).
Conclusion
Hence from the discussion one can arrive at the conclusion that there is
a need for greater autonomy and independence among institutions to react more
rapidly and effectively to demands of the market and enhance new and strategic
thinking that are important to high quality institutions. Limited public
policies and management practices suppress autonomous thinking and limit the
significant involvement of higher education to the public. Systematic factors
involve public policy and governance issues. When these are considered together
with assessment, accreditation and regulation, and facilitation of quality and
access to higher education reform efforts can be increased or obstructed by how
governments support policies to present better access.
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