RIYADH, 15 December 2007 — Public schools for girls in Saudi Arabia are very closed-door institutions where men are virtually off limits. Each day as school lets out, the name of each student is called out over a microphone. Then the student’s guardian or driver approaches and custody is handed over to him by a school caretaker. At the university level, where girls have become young women, one would expect things to be a little less guarded, right?

Apparently not, according to women students who say they still feel that the university has too much control over their personal freedoms, from the color of the clothes they wear to being treated just like schoolgirls when they leave campus.

At a major woman’s university in Riyadh, one student was seen arguing recently with a gatekeeper who was demanding she show documented proof that the considerably older man standing outside was in fact her father picking her up, something he has done since she was old enough to attend primary school as a young girl.

Students say that the university, which is supposed to be a place where young women experience greater freedoms, needs to lighten up.

“Typically girls are forbidden from leaving the university before noon because the gates are locked,” art student Sarah Helal told Arab News. This poses a problem for students who, like Helal, have only one morning lecture while the rest of the classes are in the afternoon. She ends up sitting on campus for four hours instead of having the freedom to go somewhere else and return later in the day.

“Due to this regulation, we lose a sense of time management,” said Fadwa, another student. “Girls are wasting three hours or more inside university campuses eating and gossiping, which doesn’t bode well for their future careers.”

Nuha A., a student from Imam Muhammad ibn Saud University, said locking thousands of students in an enclosed campus is a safety threat.

“Only one gate is opened during the day on a campus which holds more than 3,000 people,” she said.

Hebah Banmey, a third-year translation student, told Arab News that her university life is almost as controlled as her time in high school. Her university, which styles itself as the oldest university in the Kingdom, forces female students to wear a uniform consisting of a long, black skirt and long-sleeved white top.

“We are only permitted to wear colors such as black, white and brown. These are drab, masculine colors,” she said, adding that her university has female guards at the gate to check outfits. “It’s very annoying to see BA and MA students barred from lectures because they wore pink or red tops. All of the world’s top universities manage to have ladies wear what they like and still graduate with excellent degrees.”

A university official, who refused to have her name made public, told us: “The rules, which are set by college and university management, are meant to prevent females from exhibiting bad behavior. The university is responsible for their actions. One of the university’s roles is to be responsible for girls and guarantee that they are at the university during regular teaching hours and not going away without their parents’ permission. For this reason gates are closed during the day.”

She also pointed out that the uniforms have been based on parents’ wishes in the first place. “The uniform eliminates the financial disparity between students and also encourages them to focus on their studies rather than what they look like,” said the source.

But many academics expressed their resentment toward some of the rules at women’s universities. “Unfortunately public universities still operate under regulations that have been in existence since the 1960s, when women were first permitted access to higher education.”