User:Lesser Cartographies/sandbox/Women's education in Saudi Arabia

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"There is constant contention in all Arab and foreign literature over the Islamic position on women. To understand this controversy, it is important to eschew all generalizations about women in Islam, and to understand first, what is the actual teaching of Islam and second, what is the Wahabi interpretation of Islam." "The first public schools for girls were not established before the early 1960s. Gradually, a separate girls' education system developed that now offers free schooling from primary school to the doctoral level (Sabbagh, 1996)."

"As of 1997, Saudi Arabia had seven universities with 68 colleges and another 61 women-only colleges (Jerichow, 1998). Based on the Saudi Arabian Information Resource website, in 1998, the King Khaled bin Abdul Aziz University was founded for a total of eight universities. It also has 56 specialized colleges for fields such as health, teacher training, and technology, and 70 technical centers for agriculture, commerce, and industry (Jerichow, 1998)."

"The number of males graduating annually from university rose from 795 in 1970 to 21,229 in 1999, while the number of female graduates rose from 13 to 21,721 – ending in a total that slightly exceeded the number of male graduates. ....(Cordesman, 2003) "

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"In September 1999, the first private women’s college was established in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia. Named for the queen who brought education for females to Saudi Arabia in 1955..."

"Effat College ... endowed ... with 1/3 of the Queen’s personal fortune from a family foundation."

"Currently, the college has 200 students studying in five majors: early childhood education,computer science, information systems, English and rhetoric, and educational psychology. The first class of 9 students graduated June 18, 2003."

"The Saudi school system is based on memorization. Students learn reading, writing, math, and religious teachings, but not history, geography, or current events- except what is found in their faith. More importantly they are expected to simply memorize and follow along without questioning why. Effat College is attempting to change the definition of education from memorization to “critical thinking” and “leadership.”"

"In phase three of the study, when surveyed about plans after graduation 65% (26 of 40) of students responded that they planned to begin a career or go to work; 27.5% (11) planned to enter graduate school somewhere other than Jeddah (preferably London); and 15% (6) planned to get married. When asked later, some students explained that with a degree, they would have more say about who they would marry and many had already refused arranged marriages. Without an education or career prospects, women in Saudi Arabia often do not have enough status to refuse the engagement, and they must marry the person their family selects."

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"Within their female-only campuses, women at Saudi Arabia's universities let loose. Trendy sneakers, colorful tops, a myriad of hairstyles. Some experiment with bleach blonde or even dip-dyed blue hair. The more adventurous ones have cropped their hair into short buzzes. In their bags, the textbooks vary, but one item is mandatory: a floor-length black abaya robe that each must cover herself with when she steps through the university gates back to the outside world of the kingdom."

"Women's participation in the workplace is minimal, in part due to segregation requirements and traditions that encourage women to focus on marriage and children. Although girls make up almost 58 percent of undergraduates nationwide, or around 474,000 students, women hold only a third of the jobs in the public sector, and in the private sector the percentage of working women is in the low single digits."

" ...a teacher, the role of an estimated 78 percent of Saudi Arabia's working women"

"Previously, women's colleges were overseen by the Department of Religious Guidance, putting female students under the direct power of clerics. In 2002, they were put under the Education Ministry, which oversees male education. Five years later, the first full women's university was created, the Princess Nora University in Riyadh. In 2009, the country's first gender-mixed university, the King Abdullah University of Science and Technology, was opened. It was a show of defiance by the king against the country's ultraconservatives, on whose support his power is partly based. When one prominent government cleric criticized the university, the king fired him. Still, it remains the only university where men and women attend lectures together."

" No universities offer engineering degrees for women, and many courses are geared toward traditional fields such as nursing and teaching."

"Education spending makes up more than a quarter of the state budget, at $45 million in 2012 and an expected $54.5 billion this year, according to the Oxford Business Group. Money has been allocated the past two years for 1,300 new schools, including universities and colleges."

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Okaz newspaper reported student Amna Baweazeer at King Saud University suffered a heart attack on Wednesday, February 6th 2014, with male paramedic prevented from attending her for for an hour. The student died. The university denied the report.

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2002 Mecca girls' school fire

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Leads

Brévart-Demm, C. (December 2002). "Liberal arts in a conservative land: Two Swarthmoreans help start a women's college in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia". Swarthmore College Bulletin.

Cordesman, Anthony H. (2003). Saudi Arabia Enters the Twenty-First Century. Praeger.

Jerichow, Anders (1998). The Saudi File. St. Martin's Press.