JEDDAH, 25 May 2006 — Dar Al-Hekma College hosted the 5th meeting of the presidents and deans of private colleges in Saudi Arabia yesterday to discuss the problems, challenges and opportunities facing the education sector and what role the private colleges can play in addressing them.
After discussing the future direction of private colleges in the morning session, participants were divided into two discussion groups: one addressing the gap between higher education and the labor market and the second addressing the gap between high school preparation and college education.
Participants of the morning roundtable discussion and discussion groups reached agreement that not only there is a gap between high school and college and between college and the labor market but there is also a gap between government policies and implementations, between community sectors and education and a gap between the young generation and the labor market.
Holly Sargent, senior associate dean for advancement and senior director for University Women’s Initiatives at Harvard University, chaired the first discussion group that addressed the gap between higher education and the labor market.
The purpose of the discussion was to present some ideas to link education to the economy and make changes to entrenched educational practices.
The participants brought up what they consider are the problems facing the education sector, including a lack of alignment between the types of graduates and the needs of the labor market and the quality of the graduates in terms of knowledge, skills, experience and character.
Other participants pointed out that there has to be a political will at all government levels to implement reforms and a need to involve the employers in the changes. The recommendations made at one session focused on involving the private sector through meetings, forums and cooperative learning, having faculty-exchange meetings and sharing information, establishing faculty task forces on relevance and rigor and sharing stories of exceptional students.
Suhair Al-Qurashi, dean of Dar Al-Hekma, said that the college is starting a program for reconditioning the mindset of faculty members in public and private schools.
As for the discussion group on the gap between high school preparation and college education, Lucas Welch, founder and president of Soliya, a nonprofit organization dedicated to developing a new generation of leaders in partnership with educational institutions, talked about the skills needed to be taught to the students.
These include encouraging self-motivation, critical thinking and language and computer skills.
The recommendations were for short-term plan of preparatory programs and long-term plan for partnerships with schools focusing on developing the students, the teachers, the curriculum and the community.
