DHAHRAN: The Ministry of Education has set out 14 standards to measure the levels of achievement at Saudi universities regarding scientific and research progress, student activities and services.

The standards include economic efficiency through measuring the proportion of graduates to freshmen in the same year, and the time taken by students to graduate.

Meanwhile, the external efficiency of the university might be measured through the period of study and the number of scholarship students at the university, according to the various university phases.

They also include scholarship and student services, i.e. the proportion of scholarships for professors and students as well in the theoretical, scientific and medical fields, and the number of outside and inside scholarships for teaching assistants and lecturers.

Regarding student activities and services, this standard includes the number of students participating in student activities, the available types of activities and their number, and the number of male and female students participating in qualitative training courses and programs.

The student services standard covers the number of housing units and beneficiaries; the number of meals; male and female beneficiaries of health care; student fund services and their disbursements; the number of round-trip tickets granted to students added to the number of training and rehabilitation courses, and programs carried out by the university; and the number of trainees.

Among the new standards there is the university’s investment and cooperation, which includes the university facilities investment ratio and university endowments. There is a standard to measure the level of cooperation between universities through a research cooperation index, such as the proportion of joint research between Saudi universities.

In addition, the new standards include community service; the infrastructure for scientific research; the number of published research and those being conducted outside the scope of scientific research centers; development programs at the university; as well as the standard of leadership indicators in the higher education.

There are also standards to measure the role of the university in the development of information and communication technology, and the university’s immediate and future vision toward the application of the e-government concept in its dealings, and the university’s website and available electronic services.