SAUDI ARABIA: E-learning education shake-up

In a major transformation of traditional education, most universities in the kingdom of Saudi Arabia are expected to switch to a system of e-learning next year. The Saudi Ministry of Higher Education has established a National Centre of E-learning & Distance Learning, known as the ELC, to organise the change and prepare e-learning material. Nine universities have already agreed to implement the system.

Saudi Arabia's King Abdullah has called for a national plan to adopt information technology across the country. The plan recommends implementation of e-learning and distance learning, and their prospective applications in higher education.

The Higher Education Ministry has set up a repository for e-learning material to help universities adopt the system. E-books for engineering, medical, computer science and humanities courses will be available initially. Academics in the universities who have agreed to adopt e-learning are being offered training.

Director of the national centre, Dr. Abdullah Almegren, told Asharq Al-Awsat Arabic Daily last month that the new system would bring about dramatic progress in Saudi Arabian higher education.

"A team of experts from the ministry recently visited a number of international universities that have successfully adopted the e-learning system to know how it is working," Almegren was quoted as saying.

Experts from the ministry were in Australia last month and held talks with senior academics in universities with significant e-learning programmes, as well as with the Australian Universities Quality Agency.

Almegren told the Arabic Daily the ministry was investigating the prospect of reducing
class attendance hours for university students after shifting to e-learning: "Once the system is implemented, students need not have 100% class attendance as they can keep in touch with faculty members through modern electronic communication facilities," he said.

The need to adopt a new system was essential as the traditional model would not be appropriate or adequate in preparing students for the complexities of a rapidly developing society.

"E-learning truly enables students to tailor their education under the guidance of teachers serving as mentors," Almegren said.

The newspaper reported the universities that have signed memoranda of understanding with the ministry to introduce the e-learning scheme include King Saud University, King Abdul Aziz University, Baha University, Taiba University, Qassim University and Madinah Islamic University.

Almegren said that under the agreements, his centre would provide technical and consultative support to universities to use e-learning, facilitate the transition to this type of education and set out the basic rules for its application.