The Education System in Kuwait

The educational system in Kuwait, starting out as a few Quranic schools that taught religion and basic Arab literacy, has developed into a system enrolling thirty percent of the state’s population.  By 1995, there were 861 state and private schools in Kuwait. 

The first school of modern education, the Al Mubarakiyya School, was founded in 1912 and offered education for boys.  Al Mubarakiyya started off teaching the subjects of commerce, arithmetic, and letter drafting.  Later, more subjects, including history, art and geography, were added to the curriculum.  In 1921, the Al Ahmadia School was founded; this was the first Kuwaiti school to teach English as a subject.  Shortly after, schools for girls began to be introduced. 

The first schools were private, but 1935 marked the beginning of public education, when the state was given control of the school system.  At this time, the state opened four new schools, three schools for boys and one for girls.  By 1945, Kuwait housed a total of seventeen schools.  The main schooling system consists of elementary, intermediate, and secondary schools, but in the year 1954, the first technical college was established.  Around this time, emphasis was also placed on opening special education facilities for the disabled.  About 1,644 special needs students were enrolled in special education programs in 1973. In the year 1960, Kuwait had 45,000 students enrolled in their education system.

The department of education was growing rapidly, so in 1962, the department became the official Ministry of Education;  “…the ministry was to chart the directions for educational development over the course of the decades ahead”.  The current Minister of Education in Kuwait is Nouriya al-Subaih.

The Constitution of 1962 claimed that education was a fundamental right to all citizens, including females.  Therefore, Kuwait offers education to all Kuwaitis free of charge.  In 1965, school became mandatory for all children ages six to fourteen.  Beyond elementary, intermediate, and secondary schooling, Kuwait also offers higher education, with no charge at all.  There are many different institutions of higher learning, including Kuwait University, applied educational centers, and technical colleges.  “As of academic year 1995-96, 4,355 students were enrolled in these applied educational facilities.”  At the university level, students can engage in many different academic studies including the humanities, scientific and educational specifications, or specializations in the social sciences. 

Four years are spent at each level of the schooling system.  All public schools in Kuwait are gender specific, but many private schools are co-ed.  In each state school, English is taught as a primary subject from the second grade forward.  Each school contains a library, and Kuwait has expanded its book collection from around 230,000 to almost three million books.  “The government has also launched an ‘Education Net’ project to connect every government school and library to a telecommunications data network.” 

Although public education is certainly the most relevant part of Kuwait’s schooling system, private education is also a very important part of the system.  Private schools enroll about a third of all students at the elementary, intermediate, and secondary levels.  Private schools are mostly foreign sponsored, but Kuwait’s government does provide significant subsidization for these schools.  Private schools, unlike public schools, vary in languages of instruction and curriculums; this allows parents to somewhat choose what their children will learn, making private schools very popular. 

Although the education system in Kuwait is currently booming, some have criticized the efficiency of the system. 

Unfortunately, “the new waves of graduates, having received from their state schools a nominal college or university education, were unmotivated to enter private sector employment.  And just as unmotivated as graduates were to take up private sector jobs, employers were equally unmotivated—if not actually more so—to hire Gulf nationals.  They could hire Pakistanis, Indians, Bangladeshis, and other nationalities for much less cost and hassle.”  

Also, the curriculum of preparatory educational and training programs has not exactly coincided with the needs and demands of the Kuwaiti labor market.  Therefore, reform of higher-level education is being contemplated.  There are many different questions that must be addressed in order to restructure the higher-level education system, one being “will students be receptive to the training and education received so as to obtain skills and qualifications rendering them as competitive candidates in an expatriate dominated job market?”  

Most of the recent Kuwaiti generation has been criticized to have “spoiled child syndrome.”  This is the idea that after receiving a free education on a “silver platter”, there is very little self-motivation when it comes to work and efficiency in performance.   Therefore, the education system must build up a sense of motivation and work ethic in the youth in order for the flourishing system to be successful. 

3/19/2009