Under the auspices of the Saudi Education Minister, Dr. Ahmed Al-Issa, RCQE organized a workshop on “the Merger of Saudi Arabia’s Public Education Ministry and Higher Education Ministry: lessons from international experiences”. The workshop was held on Sunday, 24/1/2016, at RCQE premises and attended by His Excellency Dr. Naif Al-Rumi, the Governor of Public Education Evaluation Commission, His Excellency Dr. Ali Al-Karni, the Director General of the Arab Bureau of Education for the Gulf States, deputies of education ministry, elite of international experts and advisors and member of Shoura Council.
At the Beginning, Dr. Husam Zaman, RCQE Director General, delivered a brief on the white paper conducted by RCEQ. Such paper addressed the literatures of merger processes mentioned in scientific research and media reports in other countries, studied the Malaysian case, and reviewed the Saudi context that includes an overview of the institutional context followed by comments on the merger found in the Saudi press.
Dr. Zaman stated that the paper proposed four potential scenarios of the merger. Each scenario is based on the required objectives of the merger. The first scenario focuses on development of comprehensive policies and plans while Functions and structures inherited from MoE and MoHE are preserved. The Second scenario focuses on horizontal restructuring of ministerial functions and relevant structures to specialized agencies and to universities while maintaining centralized management.
Moreover, Dr. Zaman elaborated that the third scenario focuses on vertical restructuring, gradually offering universities and school administrations autonomy according to capacity while the forth scenario adopts the total fusion of the two ministries by merging all functions and structures. But the disadvantages of the last scenario include the large size of fused ministry could lead to longer decision-making chains and more complicated procedures.
The participants shared point of views and ideas on the suitable mechanisms to implement the merger. They all agreed on the importance to think about a new complex that copes with the current circumstances. They indicated also that transparency is a must while handling this issue and thinking should be out of the box to achieve efficiency and effectiveness and to save efforts and costs.
It worth to mention that this workshop is the fifth stage of the white paper conducted by RCQE in cooperation with UNESCO IIEP. The purpose of such paper is to define the lessons learned from the international experiences in education ministries merger, review the central and decentral governance in the Ministry, explore the different roles of administrative authorities and the expected roles after the merger, and finally provide the necessary recommendations. This project comes with the context of RCQE regional plans to conduct studies that inform decision makers in a manner that promote education quality and excellence policies in the Arab world.
