Saudi-Arabien: Mehr Führungspositionen für Frauen im Bildungsministerium

Dr. Samia Binladen, seit kurzem die stellvertretende Gereraldirektorin der "Girls Education Administration" in Jeddah, erwartet für die Zukunft mehr Frauen in Führungspositionen im saudischen Bildungsministerium. Zudem plant Dr. Binladen die Angleichung der Bildungsmöglichkeiten von Jungen und Mädchen.


More leadership positions for women in Saudi Education Ministry
Arab News - 01 October, 2006

More women are expected to occupy top positions in the Ministry of Education and the integration of the girls and boys administrations, procedures and curriculum is also planned, according to Dr. Samia Binladen, assistant director general of girls education administration in Jeddah.

Dr. Binladen was promoted to the job over a month ago and is the first woman to hold such a position in the Western Province. In a roundtable discussion with journalists yesterday, she talked about her new duties, new projects and future expectations.

She explained, “My new job gives me authority over ten basic areas that include planning and development of the education system, teachers and student affairs in these administrations. We hope and expect that the number of women in leadership positions in the ministry will increase but we have to prove ourselves and be worthy of our leaders’ confidence and support of us.”

The changes in the ministry’s policies about involving women are in line with the king’s approval of activating a code of ethics for the teaching profession. “There is a plan and continuous campaign for activating the code and we are considering holding a conference involving all the parties concerned. The goal is increasing the teachers’ loyalty to the profession and providing her with guidelines on how to improve herself and develop her skills,” said Dr. Binladen. The code covers not only the teachers but also parents, school environment, curriculum and everything related to the education process.

Dr. Binladen also talked about the changes introduced this year in the student evaluation system. The continuous evaluation system that has been implemented in grades one to three and is being expanded to cover all six years of elementary education aims to develop critical thinking.

“We have achieved about 80 percent training of supervisors and teachers in the elementary level and by next week, the figure will be 100 percent. There is some misunderstanding and apprehension by parents about this now because it is new but it has been studied and tested and is more effective,” she said. Many parents wonder about the effect the system will have on their children when they move to the next level which still follows the traditional system. Dr. Binladen says that a comprehensive project for the intermediate level is being studied which will be implemented at the right time.

“There is a pioneer project to unify the work and policies of the boys and girls sectors and create a job description guide because there are differences between the systems and curriculums in the boys and girls administrations,” she said. Asked if this meant physical education would be introduced in girls’ schools, she said she had no comment on the subject.

Other new projects include the electronic archiving of all teachers’ files. In Jeddah the archiving will be completed in six months whereupon teachers can access their files using an ID number. Dr. Binladen has also opened a new teachers’ training center in southern Jeddah in an effort to focus and improve conditions in a part of the city which has been neglected.

One of the recurring problems with no solution in sight is that of women teachers posted to schools in remote villages and the hardships they face on the road, especially with frequent reports of fatal and horrendous accidents. Dr. Binladen said the accidents were unfortunate and she sympathized with teachers and their families but the decision of where to post them or to transfer them to another school is with the ministry.

One solution that the ministry has insisted on this year is to staff the remote schools with teachers from those areas rather than from the city, but Dr. Binladen pointed out that there is also a problem in meeting the schools’ needs for teachers of particular subjects.

Another problem is that of old rented school buildings that are unfit to be schools; some are dangerous and unsafe. For the past four years, the ministry has followed a system of double shifts — one in the morning and one in the evening — in suitable schools while buildings are being renovated or constructed according to specific standards.

It seems that this will continue for another year, according to Dr. Binladen, but the ministry has plans to phase out rented buildings within seven years by which time all school buildings will be owned by the ministry.