How Have Policy Makers Responded to the Current State of ICT in

Schools in Saudi Arabia? A Qualitative Investigation

Abdulwahab Alharbi

University of Glasgow, Robert Owen Centre for Educational Change, U.K.

Keywords: Ministry of Education, Education Authority, ICT, Support.

Abstract: Previous research into Information and Communication Technology (ICT) in Saudi schools has not

considered the role of the Ministry of Education or the Education Authority (EA). As a researcher, I decided

to study their role in an attempt to understand the current state of ICT in Saudi schools from the perspectives

of policy makers from both bodies. The aim of the study resulted in the generation of the following research

question: What are the policy makers’ views about the current state of ICT in education in Saudi Arabia? As

this research aims to discover and understand the current state of ICT in schools from the views and

perspectives of policy makers, a qualitative methodology has been employed and interviews were used to

collect the data. In total, five policy makers from both the Ministry of Education in KSA and the local

education authority in Ar-Rass city participated. The findings show that the Ministry of Education and the

education authority are significant factors in the failure of ICT in schools. The study concludes that, in order

to handle issues that affect the successful use of ICT in education, departments of education need to develop

their policies, strategies, plans and frameworks.

1 INTRODUCTION

Developments in information and communication

technology (ICT) over the past decades have led to

significant changes in the global economy and also to

changes in the way countries, people and companies

communicate in order to do business (Bhagwati,

2004; Sachs, 2005; Soros, 2002; Stiglitz, 2002, cited

by Kozma, 2005). Since education is perceived as the

most vital and significant factor in the development

of any country as it is believed to be the first step to

reach other sectors of society (UNESCO, 2005;

Kozma, 2005; Almalki, 2013; The World Bank,

2015), countries around the word, including the

Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, have invested a large

amount of funds in ICT in education, aiming to

improve education in order to produce more

educated, innovative and creative people to

participate in their country’s successful future.

However, many studies reveal diverse factors

affecting the successful use of ICT in education in

Saudi Arabia. Therefore, and in light of the literature

reviewed, this paper aims to understand the current

situation of using ICT in schools in the views of

policy makers working in the Ministry of Education,

the first body responsible for ICT integration in

education, who could provide significant details

about this issue. When considering the issue

addressed in this paper, several and multiple factors

affecting the use of ICT in education seem to emerge,

and consequently, this could important for any

stakeholders involved or interested in the use of ICT

in education.

Among the most significant factors affecting

teachers in regard to their use of ICT in education are

those relating to educational and ICT policies, which

are crucial issues that need to be considered. For

example, Alissa (2009) has criticised the educational

system and its development policies in KSA and has

suggested that a number of issues have been causing

the failure of education projects; these issues include

the absence of a clear political vision and the lack of

good management. Consequently, the

implementation of any ICT initiatives always seems

to be a major factor in the failure of these

interventions. Amoudi and Sulaymani (2014) have

stressed the necessity of acknowledging the

complexity of ICT implementation in the context of

Saudi Arabia. This is true, since simply transferring

ICT into educational practice does not necessarily

mean it will be used correctly and efficiently. Other

local studies add that, although teachers are perceived

to be the major engine of a school, ICT resources are

Alharbi, A.

How Have Policy Makers Responded to the Current State of ICT in Schools in Saudi Arabia? A Qualitative Investigation.

DOI: 10.5220/0006376405370542

In Proceedings of the 9th International Conference on Computer Supported Education (CSEDU 2017) - Volume 1, pages 537-542

ISBN: 978-989-758-239-4

537

also a significant factor in creating a more successful

and effective educational environment (Salem, 2004).

This is supported by another Saudi study, conducted

by Alsulaimani (2012), who found that a lack of ICT

resources available in school considerably hinders the

effectiveness of their use.

In addition to these factors, training programmes

need to train teachers not simply to be ICT skilled, but

rather on ICT skills related to pedagogy for an

effective teaching and learning process (Alenezi,

2015). ICT training programmes need to be included

in teachers’ education programmes as a significant

part of preparing future teachers for a more

technological teaching and learning environment.

Koehler and Mishra (2009) and Jaiya (2015)

emphasise the significant role of teachers’ education

in terms of preparing them to effectively use ICT in

their future careers; this can be through training

teachers more effectively in terms of practices of

pedagogy, ICT skills and knowledge of their subject.

The findings of a Saudi study conducted by

Alenezi (2015) revealed another important factor,

which is that a lack of immediate technical support

and continuous maintenance of available technology

in schools substantially hinders teachers’ success in

the use of technology and its outcomes. In the Saudi

context, research conducted by Albugami (2015)

found technical support in ICT was not suitable,

which underlines the necessity of providing all means

of required support for ICT use. A conclusion drawn

by Almulhim (2014) suggests another hindering

factor, which is the high level of workload assigned

for teachers by the school management, which then

subsequently affects their use of technology because

they do not have time to learn about and with ICT if

this is the case.

2 METHODOLOGY

As this research aims to discover and understand the

current state of ICT in schools from the views and

perspectives of policy makers in Saudi Arabia, the

following research question was devised: What are

the policy makers’ views about the current state of

ICT in education in Saudi Arabia? In order to answer

this question, a qualitative methodology has been

employed and interviews were used for the data

collection. In total, five policy makers from both the

Ministry of Education in KSA and the local education

authority in Ar-Rass city participated.

3 FINDINGS AND DISCUSSION

This section splits into categories relating to the

significant themes extracted from the policy makers’

answers. It was important to start with the present ICT

situation within policies and plans relating to

education, moving to the next theme, which considers

the role of people who should be involved in many

educational initiatives; before moving to other themes

which consider the supportive factors and the failures

in ICT interventions.

It is important to note that the policy makers’ answers

have been summarised altogether for the study

relevance purpose.

3.1 The Current State of ICT in the

Educational Policy and Plans

Policy makers in the MOE stated that the main focus

and aims for any plan and project in education come

from the national plans that require (in general) all the

state’s ministries to keep up with overall global

developments as well as in regard to the use of

technology; and, in particular, the Ministry of

Education (MOE) for the continuous development in

education and the learning and teaching process as the

general education policy aims for the same. The

ministry in turn is responsible for the planning and

provision of any project-related needs. However, this

response was contradicted by another response

regarding the current situation of ICT in schools, with

the respondent revealing that the ministry does not

have such information, as the educational authorities

(EAs) are responsible for school visits for any

assessment and evaluation after the projects have

been introduced to the EAs by MOE. However, most

schools should have the required equipment and each

EA should have introduced the necessary induction

and training for any projects released by the ministry.

Thus, these responses confirm the lack of MOE’s

relation to its other related departments, which also

may indicate that accountability is an important factor

in the failure of ICT use in education. It was observed

that IT-related departments were working together on

everything specified for technology in education,

such as plans for projects. However, participants

noted that now a number of departments had the title

of IT but many of them are no longer related to IT in

the teaching and learning process. Thus, participants

found that as a significant reason of not giving a

number of important information, as one said, “That

is why we do not have the information you need as we

are no longer working together.” Thus, they had little

experience or awareness about what exactly is

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happening at schools in terms of using ICT. One

confirmed that, “We do not make visits to schools but

our educational authorities and their related sectors

should check that when they visit schools”. Another

participant argued, “…but mostly we do not receive

their feedback of what actually happens in practice.

However, from the information we have there are

different educational authorities who are enthusiastic

for planning and implementing new and different ICT

programmes at schools.”

Since this section concerns MOE’s policies and

plans, it is important to point out that it would gain in

more significance if I had been able to access ICT

policies to gain more understanding for the purposes

of this research. I had attempted, using different

methods, to access ICT policy documents, which

should be clearly stated and operated as what we call

policies in Saudi Arabia, but I failed to access any

policy documents related to ICT. One of the top five

participants admitted clearly that, “There are no

available documents [that] can help your research as

most of the documents we have are specific

documents for us to work on the IT background in the

ministry and the priority is always for the ministry

and its related departments and schools websites and

portals. Actually, we are not lonely on the

responsibility of ICT integration in schools as that is

planned by the government and all ministries are

required to consider this as the development plan in

their ministries and related sectors.” Another

participant stated that, “Honestly, we may have some

[policy documents] but they are very confidential and

not to be shown [to anyone other] than people who

have the right of access to such documents.”

3.2 The Role of Stakeholders

A number of roles for different stakeholders emerged

and were discussed, as follows.

3.2.1 The Role of the MOE

According to the government requirements in regard

to ICT in education, the ministry’s ICT plans depend

on these set requirements. Before the ministry

requires any school to implement any project, “We

require educational authorities to introduce these

projects to the supervisors [EAs’ school subject

leaders], who should then deliver the necessary

Training to Teachers.”

3.2.2 The Role of the Educational

Authorities

They receive confirmation about any projects and

requests for training stakeholders. Those stakeholders

should then train teachers about any new project. The

EAs carry out maintenance jobs for any schools in the

same region upon a head teacher’s request. EAs

arrange visits to schools if the schools have any

concerns or queries about ICT. IT supervisors visit

the schools to assess and evaluate the status and the

use of ICT. However, these visits usually only happen

after a request from a school, which makes the role of

the school management team more difficult in dealing

with ICT issues.

3.2.3 The Role of School Management

Responses from EA participants highlighted the

head-teachers’ role, as they should request any ICT-

related resources required in the schools. Another part

of their role is to encourage teachers to register for

ICT training programmes available at the training

centres in the EAs. They should also monitor the

situation and the real practice of ICT in their school,

and then report that to the local EA.

3.2.4 The Role of Teachers

Most projects consider the development of the

teaching and learning process. However, in terms of

teachers’ role in the project plans, EA and policy

makers admitted that teachers are not involved.

Teachers should join the training course available at

the training centre in the EA or in the resources room

centre available in the schools. As one of their ICT-

related roles, they should use ICT resources that are

available at school in their teaching.

3.3 Training Opportunities

- The embassy requires EAs to provide training to

teachers as many teachers still prefer the

traditional methods of teaching. Each school

must have one teacher assigned only for the

resources room centre where the necessary ICT

resources are available.

- However, the EAs have clarified the state and

nature of this training as:

1. Most of those teachers are not experts in the

field of technology and do not have adequate

skills as originally they taught other school

subjects but have now undertaken a course in the

resources rooms. However, these courses are

inadequate and do not cover all the necessary

How Have Policy Makers Responded to the Current State of ICT in Schools in Saudi Arabia? A Qualitative Investigation

539

training for ICT in education. Thus, on the other

side, this would result in a lack of training

opportunities for teachers as well.

2. They revealed that there are very few

courses during the academic year.

3. However, because of their workload,

teachers are usually not interested in joining

these training courses, for a number of reasons,

such as:

a. They are not paid by the ministry (no

appreciation or rewards) for training during

school time nor for courses taken outside of

school hours (if there are any).

4. These training courses are completely

optional and only a few teachers are willing to

attend. They gave the interactive white board

(IWB) as an example. The general manager of

an IT department admitted the failure of the

IWB during the past years, especially in terms

of training availability. He said the embassy

simply notified them that the IWBs would be

delivered to schools and told them to ensure that

the schools used them once they were installed,

without any training being available concerning

their use.

3.4 Resources

In terms of the actual condition of the IT environment

in schools, the EA participant admitted: “We are

definitely aware about this issue but it is not our

responsibility to change these non-working and old

resources without a formal request made by school

management”. They felt that some head teachers did

not request new resources in order to avoid any

accountability issues that might arise if the EA knew

that they were not using technology in their schools.

The EA has IT supervisors who visit schools to

check if they need any maintenance or want to report

any issues related to ICT in the school in general. I

asked the participant, “If you have a maintenance

team visiting schools and they can see all the issues

as most of the resources are visible, why does the EA

not take action in this case and make the change even

if the school head teachers do not want to request

them escaping from the accountability?” He replied:

“Because we are sure if do this action, those head

teachers will require us to provide them with

appropriate training courses to learn how to use

these types [of resources] and learn any new

[techniques] they are not aware about. In this case,

we could not accept such requests as the first

responsible body for that is the ministry; they need to

organise and prepare effective courses and pay for

resources and for any stakeholders, so we can do the

job if everything is available.”

3.5 Failure of Development Projects for

General Education Stages

Policy makers stated that the ministry has a number

of ICT projects and it works on implementing them.

However, the usual issues concerning the success of

these projects relate to the education authorities and

their schools, as the MOE could not be responsible

for the EAs neglect and carelessness in implementing

the ministry’s projects. An example is the King

Abdullah project for educational development in

2007 when each student and teacher was provided

with laptop devices. The government provided a good

budget for this project, but admitted that it had failed

and no longer existed. What happened was that the

integration of technology in this project was only part

of the educational development plan in general and it

was only implemented in a few selected schools in

each region in the country; in addition, from different

stakeholders in the ministry did not put any thought

into the technology and thus the devices were not

used. Therefore, these devices were collected again

by the project officials from the selected schools.

3.6 Some Issues Related to ICT Use in

Education

a. The ministry provides expensive resources to

implement most projects only in selected

schools in each region of the country. Then,

if the project has succeeded and there are

enough funds available, it can be expanded to

other schools, as planned. Otherwise, the

project might not have the potential and

attention as it was and might be cancelled.

This is one reason why some projects are

cancelled or suspended until further notice.

b. Provision of new resources in some schools

for the same issue above. However,

sometimes is not only because of funds but

because the provision of new resources is

wasting the ministry’s budget when it is spent

on schools that have not used the old

resources.

c. Maintenance issues, as each educational

authority is only allowed to employ a specific

number of people for team maintenance,

which is not enough, as each authority has at

least 300 schools or more. In terms of

assigning maintenance staff in each school,

this has been impossible so far.

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d. Teachers’ development: the ministry

provides some courses, but EAs may lack the

means to advertise or deliver these courses. In

addition, the majority of teachers have not

welcomed this idea as they are not paid for

out of hours’ work.

e. Teachers’ skills: as the training is always

optional and because teachers are not

motivated or rewarded financially or at least

with a reduction in their daily work hours,

large numbers of teachers are not interested

in improving their ICT skills or undertaking

basic courses to improve their ICT skills. In

addition, age and in-service experience play

an important role in relation to teachers’ lack

of ICT skills, as the majority of Saudi

teachers with more than 10 years of service

did not study any IT subject in their own

education, except those who specialised in IT

at university.

f. Teachers and students’ acceptance of and

attitude towards the use of ICT is also an

issue, and here we need to educate them about

the benefits that the use of ICT can provide

for their teaching and learning.

4 CONCLUSIONS

There are many hindering factors in relation to the use

of ICT in education. The findings presented in this

paper have shown a number of the factors that most

affect the successful use of ICT in Saudi schools.

However, factors related to the Ministry of Education

cause most of these obstacles. Therefore, it can be

concluded that initiatives and actions from

educational departments no doubt have a significant

influence on the success or failure of ICT integration

in education; and, in order to minimise issues such as

those revealed in the present paper, more efforts and

attention are required from the organisational-level

departments of education for developing their

policies, strategies, plans and frameworks.

It is important to indicate that, in regard to the

research question, which considers the policy makers’

views in order to understand the current state of ICT

in education, it would have been helpful if I had been

able to access ICT policies to gain more

understanding for the purposes of this research. I did

attempt to gain wide access to ICTs – which should

be clearly stated and operated as what we call policies

in Saudi Arabia – through different ways including

literature, the Ministry of Education and its related

sectors and organisations’ websites and publications,

and face-to-face meetings with policy makers and

other people in the Ministry. However, despite all

these attempts, I failed to access or gain information

on any policy required for this study. In particular,

during my fieldwork for the collection of this study

data, I met the policy makers themselves, who refused

to share any policy or even strategies with the

researcher as they admitted that the ministry lacks a

clear and standard policy specifically for ICT.

There is some local research where ICT policy

may be found; however, in reality, most of this is

usually taken from objectives of different plans or

projects, and, although researchers call them policies,

this is not true – unlike in the case of my study. No

single article on the general educational policy in

Saudi Arabia mentions ICTs, but other plans,

programmes and projects may set up a number of

objectives. However, these initiatives cannot reflect

the policy we mean in this study, as a number of ICT

interventions in the Saudi context have been

cancelled or postponed or have even failed. The

findings of the study will provide more details about

this crucial issue.

Therefore, I have instead decided to interview ICT

policy makers from departments related to the

Ministry of Education to understand the current state

of ICT in education from their perspectives, which

will in turn give us more understanding of the use of

ICT by teachers in the light of their views and help

shape the aims of the present study. In addition, this

research will benefit from the available literature in

regard to the Ministry’s different ICT interventions,

which should be very useful in the discussions in this

thesis. In this research, Policy Makers is used as a

term to refer to those who work in high positions in

related divisions in the ministry, and are the highest-

level representatives of the ministry’s decisions

regarding ICT initiatives.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

I am grateful to Dr. Oscar Valiente and Prof. Michele

Schweisfurth for their continuous support throughout

my research.

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