Education in Kuwait

State of Kuwait is directing its attention towards Inclusive Education, which

provides opportunity to all children, irrespective of their social class, including
children with special needs. It is ranked 29th on Human Development Index
(HDI) by UNESCO, highest among other Arab countries. Kuwait education
system is marked by several achievements in recent years. As of 2005/06
Kuwait allocates 13 percent of all public expenditure to education, which is
comparable to the allocation of public funds to education in many OECD
countries but lower than other Arab countries. For the same years the public
expenditure on education as a percentage of GDP was 3.9 percent in
2005/06, which is well below the percentage of GDP spent by OECD
countries on education. As of 2005 the literacy rate of Kuwait is 93.3 percent.
Kuwait is facing challenges in improving the quality of education at all levels
and to build capacities of students’ from a young age. The Ministry of
Education is also making efforts to incorporate women into the educated
workforce through various programs, for instance the 1989 initiative to
establish daytime literacy clinics for women. The Kuwaiti government also
offers scholarships to students accepted in universities in United States,
United Kingdom and other foreign institutes[4].

Early Educational Foundations: From having only a few Quranic schools

providing religious instruction and basic Arabic literacy tutelage at the onset of
the twentieth century, Kuwait entered the twenty-first century with one of the
most generous, comprehensive, and technologically sophisticated educational
infrastructures in the Middle East. In 1912 the Al Mubarakiyya School was
founded as Kuwait's first modern educational institution. Al Mubarakiyya was
funded by merchants to supply clerks who had a basic foundation in
commerce, good arithmetic skills, and letter drafting skills. Later, subjects
such as history, geography, and art courses were introduced to the
curriculum. The first school in Kuwait to offer English began in 1921, the Al
Ahmadia School, and shortly after that the first girls' school was founded,
offering instruction in Arabic, home economics, and Islamic studies.
In the 1930s, after the devastation of the pearling based Kuwaiti economy, the
modern period of education in Kuwait was underway. Education was placed
under state control in 1935, marking the beginning of public education.
Teachers from Palestine founded an educational mission, students were sent
abroad to receive an education, and new schools were founded. Four primary
schools opened their doors. Three of these schools had a combined total of
some 600 boys, and the other primary school was for girls with 140 pupils. A
national education department was instituted in 1936 to oversee the
government schools, and teachers from Egypt, Lebanon, Iraq, Syria, and
Palestine initiated the development of a program for secondary education in
Kuwait. By 1945 there were 17 schools in the country.
Development continued intermittently until the rapid changes of the 1950s.
From then rapid acceleration of educational development ensued with the
founding of special education facilities, the founding of the first kindergarten
schools, and the opening of the first technical college in academic year 1954-
55. There were 80 students enrolled in the first year, and the program grew
quickly to accommodate an increasing number of fields of study. In 1956 the
Institute for the Blind was inaugurated with the enrollment of 36 children. By
1973 approximately 1,644 special needs students—deaf, blind, or otherwise
handicapped—were enrolled in 11 institutes of special education. In 1963
Kuwait started adult education programs for women, following similar
programs begun for men in 1958. By 1960, their education system had
enrolled 45,000 students, 18,000 of which were girls. The education
department officially became the Ministry of Education in 1962, and the
ministry was to chart the directions for educational development over the
course of the decades ahead.

Kuwait University was established in 1966, with the aim of providing

academic, professional and technical rehabilitation, and supplying the country
with scientifically and practically qualified manpower in different
fields. Kuwait University is open to expatriate students, provided their grades
meet the requirements for admission.

State-funded adult education and vocational training is provided by the Public

Authority for Applied Education and Training (PAAET).
Additionally, there are several private institutions in the country that offer a
variety of full and part-time courses in various subjects such as business
studies, secretarial skills, computing and languages.

There are twice as many Kuwaiti women studying at the university level as
men. For the women, education represents the preferred major, followed by
majors in the arts and sciences as well as commerce and economics. For
Kuwaiti men, the preferred major is engineering and petroleum, followed by
commerce and economics, the arts and sciences, and Shari'a. The low
enrollment for men in education holds out little hope for more Kuwaiti men
entering the educational profession in the near future, meaning the
dependence on foreign male teachers will likely continue.

As of 2009/2010 around 14,342 students are enrolled in private institutions.

The approved student capacity is 18,000 and the projected capacity by year
2025 is 60,000 students.

ANNEX 1. PUC Performance Indicators

1.1.Performance Indicators: Effectiveness
Grade distribution/dispersion
Distinguished students per total
Class distribution per faculty
Intellectual output per marketed
Scientific quotations
Resource distribution

1.2Performance Indicators: Productivity

 Measures output per academic staff
Research output
Graduates
Intellectual outcome
Training outcome
Net profit

1.3Performance Indicators: Efficiency

Measure resource utilization capacity
Student output per input
Frequency of change of specialization per students
Students per academic staff
Students under probation

1.4Performance Indicators: Internal Structure

Faculty members per assistant and/or technician
Faculty members per admin staff
Faculty rank per total faculty
Course/section offering
Class/lab area per students

1.5Performance Indicators: Growth and Renewal

New faculty members per total
Ratio of foreign students to total
Business incubators graduated
Part time staff to total