When Saudis went to school
RIYADH — In the early years of the Saudi state, education in many parts of the country looked very different from the system that would eventually emerge.In some areas, learning was largely centered on the traditional kuttab, where children were taught the Holy Qur’an, religious studies, reading and writing.Schools were limited, trained teachers were scarce, and access to education varied from one community to another.King Abdulaziz bin Abdulrahman Al Saud responded by setting in motion a more organized approach to education — one that would take schools beyond the major cities and begin creating the institutions needed to administer learning across the country.According to the King Abdulaziz Foundation for Research and Archives, known as Darah, King Abdulaziz ordered the opening of schools throughout the Kingdom and the dispatch of teachers and religious scholars to smaller villages and settlements as well as larger cities.A defining institutional step came in 1926, with the establishment of the Directorate of General Education to oversee educational affairs.For the first time, the expansion of schooling had a dedicated government body responsible for directing it.The next steps followed quickly.In 1927, the Saudi Scientific Institute opened to prepare teachers for primary and elementary education.A year later, in 1928, King Abdulaziz established the Education Council to supervise and organize the development of education.The Directorate began opening government schools while also supporting private schools.But building classrooms was only part of the challenge.The country also needed expertise that was not yet available locally.Saudi Arabia therefore began sending students abroad. Darah records that the first educational mission was dispatched to Arab countries, with further scholarship missions following as the need for different specializations increased.By 1937, that effort had produced another institution: the School for Scholarship Preparation, established to prepare Saudi students before they traveled overseas to continue their education.At home, meanwhile, primary and secondary schools continued to open in different parts of the Kingdom.The expansion gathered pace as growing oil exports increased state revenues, allowing greater investment in education. The Directorate of General Education established regional offices to supervise schools and follow their development locally.Education was also being shaped around the country's specific needs.Saudi Arabia required specialists in the judiciary, religious guidance and the teaching of Islamic and Arabic sciences. In response, Dar Al-Tawhid School opened in Taif in 1945, focusing on the principles and branches of Islamic studies as well as Arabic-language sciences.Within less than two decades, the outlines of an education system had therefore begun to emerge.There was an authority responsible for education.There was an institution preparing teachers.There was a council supervising and organizing the sector.Government schools were expanding.Students were being sent abroad to acquire expertise unavailable at home.And institutions were being created to meet particular national needs.The transformation was not simply from fewer schools to more schools.It was a shift from education delivered largely through local and traditional arrangements toward education organized as a responsibility of the state.That distinction would prove fundamental.The classrooms could expand because an educational system was being built behind them.