Saudi Arabia is a kingdom founded in 1932 by King Abdulla-Aziz Bin Saud. It is located in southwestern Asia, occupying a huge part of the Arabian Peninsula. Economically, it is among the richest countries in the Middle East with a budget that reached $301.16 in 2014. However, the economy depends greatly on oil as the main source of the wealth, representing more than 80% of the country’s income. As for the population, it is ethnically diverse; the majority (90%) is Arab, while the rest (10%) are of Asian and African origins (Alhawsawi, 2013).
The discovery of oil in the late 1930s marked a significant economic shift in the history of Saudi Arabia. The economic boom due to the discovery of oil, however, did not take place until the 1970s when the oil industry and prices began to thrive. Accordingly, the country has since accumulated enormous wealth, and the government has launched huge spending on projects such as infrastructure (e.g., housing, transportation, education and healthcare). Immediately after the discovery of oil took place, the Saudi government realized the growing need for skilled foreign workforce to help run the flourishing oil industry in the country. As a result, a large inflow of foreign workers entered the country, which happen to speak English with foreigners ; currently, they present 32% of the population, mostly from Asian (Oqab Alrashidi & Huy Phan, 2012).
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As for relgion, Saudis are predominantly Muslims, and the official religion of the country is Islam. Saudi Arabia is considered as the birthplace of Islam which affects almost every aspect of Saudi’s lives. Furthermore, Saudi Arabia is the home to two holiest places of Islam: AlmasjedAlharam in Mecca and AlmasjidAlnabawi in Medina. In addition, the government is based on tenets, which influence its actions and policies. Thus, the Saudi constitution and legal framework are based on shari’ah, the Islamic law.
As stated by Oqab Alrashidi and Huy Pha (2012), ''the education system in Saudi Arabia has transformed immensely since its inception in 1925. Before that date, education was most commonly utilised in mosques and Qur’anic Schools, in which students were taught to write and read Arabic to recite the holy Qur’an (Al-Liheibi, 2008; Alsharif, 2011). However, the education system as it stands today can be attributed to the Directorate of Education, which established a formal system in 1925 (Alsharif, 2011). King Abdul-Aziz founded the Directorate of Education before the unification of the whole country and the proclamation of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia in 1932. The foundation of this agency indicated the King’s emphasis on education even though the country was new and had to deal with different local and international situations (Al-Harthi, 2014)'' (p. 34).
Currently, education in Saudi Arabia is single-sex based as for both the learner and the instructor(Oqab Alrashidi & Huy Phan, 2012), which make Saudi Arabia one of the few countries that adopt single-education for mainly spiritual and ideological reasons. ''Single-sex education can be found in other Middle Eastern countries such as Jordan and Bahrain, where there is no co-education in intermediate and secondary schools. Although education in Saudi Arabia is segregated in terms of gender, both sexes receive the same quality and educational facilities (Al-Johani, 2009). For example, stages of schooling arethe same in both genders (e.g., primary, intermediate and secondary), and the curriculum of each subject isalmost the same with small differences to meet the needs for each gender.'' (p. 35).
Abdelkerim Addi, Spring 2017