The Need for Distance Education in Colleges of Higher Education in Saudi Arabia
It might not be very clear whether higher education in Saudi Arabia is actually in need of the special arrangements of Distance Education with its clear technological bent. To clarify this, the writer followed some of the important problems which face higher education in Saudi Arabia; these are: a...
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| Format: | Article |
| Language: | Arabic |
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King Saud University
1985-01-01
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| Series: | Journal of Islamic Studies |
| Subjects: | |
| Online Access: | http://jes.ksu.edu.sa/sites/jes.ksu.edu.sa/files/1_1.pdf |
| Summary: | It might not be very clear whether higher education in Saudi Arabia is actually in need of the special arrangements of Distance Education with its clear technological bent. To clarify this, the writer followed some of the important problems which face higher education in Saudi Arabia; these are:
a) Greater demand for higher education, which increased sevenfold in the last decade.
b) The need to increase the number of the teaching staff, especially female lecturers and the rarity of these last in the ranks of Saudi nationals.
c) The presence of a bottleneck in the system when it leads to university education owing to the unprecedented pace in the extention of academic secondary education; the problem is aggravated when the graduates of these academic institutions almost unanimously take a decision to proceed to universities and higher institutes of learning.
d) The high expense of higher education in the Kingdom is a potential problem. The student costs, on the average, about 48,600 SR annually, which is truely a very high cost. Opting for ""Distance Education"" promises to contribute towards realistic solutions of these problems. To test the validity of this proposal, the writer made a quick survey of some of the literature pertinent to this problem that exists in other cultures. The answers to certain questions were tested for validity in this interculture survey:
a) It is an economic proposition to offer ""Distance Education""?
b) Are the graduates of the institutes of ""Distance Education"" of the same academic standard as those of the traditional higher institutions? In giving an affirmative answer to this question, the writer surveyed the results of a number of studies which proved the validity of that answer. |
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| ISSN: | 1658-6301 1658-6301 |