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All countries want a world-class university, but no one knows what it is, and no
one knows how to get one (Altbach 2004). Saudi Arabia has joined the search
for world class. This is an important quest, since an effective and successful
higher education system is central for any country in the knowledge economy of
the twenty-first century. Saudi thinking goes beyond building a single world-class
institution. It focuses on creating a world-class system of higher education one
that can serve a variety of societal needs simultaneously (Altbach and Balan 2007).
This key question has both a simple and a complex answer. The simple answer, as
defined by the several global rankings of universities, is that a world-class university
is a research university. The rankings measure research almost exclusively and
largely ignore the other key functions teaching, service, social engagement, and
others (Altbach 2011). Research is the only aspect of a universitys work that can
be easily measured cross-nationally. Counting numbers of articles published and to
some extent measuring their impact is an accepted part of bibliometrics and is done
by companies such as Thomson Reuters. Other metrics used by the rankers include
research funds obtained by universities, qualifications of the faculty, and student
selectivity. All of the rankings use reputational measures asking academics and
administrators what they think about specific universities worldwide perhaps the
A. Mazi ()
Centre for Higher Education Research and Studies (CHERS), Ministry of Higher Education,
Riyadh, Saudi Arabia
e-mail: abdulhalem.mazi@gmail.com
P.G. Altbach
Center for International Higher Education, Chestnut Hill, MA, USA
Boston College, Chestnut Hill, MA, USA
most widely criticised of all the criteria. All of these are input measures: none
measures what students learn, or the success of the university in teaching, or the
other central functions of higher education (Hazelkorn 2011).
The established metrics for world-class focus in large part on research univer-
sities those key institutions at the top of any academic system (Salmi 2009). In
this chapter, we focus mainly on research universities as an essential and influential
part of the Saudi higher education system, but these universities are only a small
part of a large and complex academic system. This is the case in every country, as
research universities must be integrated with other institutions that serve a range of
purposes and goals (Altbach and Salmi 2011). The need for differentiated systems
of higher education which reflect high quality at all levels is recognised in the 2011
Riyadh Statement issued at the 2nd International Exhibition and Conference on
Higher Education as well as in such influential documents as Higher Education
in Developing Countries: Peril and Promise (Task Force on Higher Education and
Society 2000).
A differentiated world-class higher education system includes a range of in-
stitutions serving a variety of purposes, such as research universities; universities
devoted mainly to teaching; undergraduate colleges offering only baccalaureate
degrees, as sometimes occur in the United States; and vocationally oriented
institutions such as community colleges in the United States or the German
fachhochschulen, which may offer certificates or lower degrees. Other kinds of
specialised postsecondary schools devoted to music, management studies, or other
specialties also constitute parts of the system. These institutions may be public or
private, depending on national policies and traditions.
Public higher education systems are often organised to include a range of
institutions and may provide the possibilities for student mobility among them.
This is the pattern in the California public higher education system that has
been influential in the United States and elsewhere (Douglass 2010). Two of the
distinctive characteristics about the California Master Plan are student mobility
among the different tiers of institutions and strong state control over the missions
and purposes of the colleges and universities in the system. Many countries seek to
create clearly differentiated public systems in order to meet growing demand from
increasingly diverse populations.
Private institutions are increasingly part of the global higher education landscape.
Indeed, private higher education is the fastest growing sector in higher education
worldwide. Private higher education is expanding rapidly in Saudi Arabia as well,
with 21 colleges and 7 private universities serving more than 35,000 students. The
private sector presents many challenges for a world-class system. Few countries
have been able to guide or limit the expansion of the private sector, and quality
assurance has been a problem as well. Saudi private institutions are of mixed quality.
Some have achieved good quality, while some are for-profit institutions with little
commitment to the public good.
The necessary constituent parts of a differentiated academic system must work
in harmony to serve a range of purposes. A world-class system is both hierarchical
and cooperative, with research universities as flagship institutions and other kinds
2 Dreams and Realities: The World-Class Idea and Saudi Arabian Higher Education 15
Saudi Arabias rapidly expanding higher education system seems somewhat ob-
sessed with rankings and defining world class in a Saudi context. The following
discussion is an effort to place Saudi universities in the context of current global
debates about world-class universities. The focus is entirely on research universities,
as these institutions are the focus of the influential global rankings, and they have
been of great concern to Saudi Arabia in recent years.
16 A. Mazi and P.G. Altbach
The following analysis focuses on the rankings, how Saudi universities have been
evaluated in the past two decades, and on the policies put into place to improve the
kingdoms research universities, and thus their place in the rankings.
If rankings did not exist, someone would invent them (Altbach 2011). They are an
inevitable result of mass higher education and of competition and commercialisation
in postsecondary education worldwide. Potential customers (students and their
families) want to learn which of many higher education options to choose the most
relevant and most advantageous. Rankings provide some answers to these questions.
Mass higher education produces a diversified and complex academic environment,
with many new academic institutions and options. It is not surprising that rankings
became prominent first in the United States, the country that experienced massifi-
cation earliest as a way of choosing among the growing numbers of institutional
choices. Colleges and universities themselves wanted a way to benchmark against
peer institutions. Rankings provided an easy, if highly imperfect, way of doing this.
The most influential, and widely criticised, general ranking is the US News & World
Report: Americas Best College Ranking, now in its 17th year. Numerous other
rankings exist as well, focusing on a range of variables, from the best buys to the
best party schools, and institutions that are most wired. Most of these rankings
have little validity but are nonetheless taken with some seriousness by at least some
of the public.
As postsecondary education has become more internationalised, the rankings
have, not surprisingly, become global as well. Almost three million students study
outside their own countries; many seek the best universities available abroad and
find rankings quite useful. Academe itself has become globalised, and institutions
seek to benchmark themselves against their peers worldwide, often to compete for
students and staff. Academic decision-makers and government officials sometimes
use the global rankings to make resource choices and other decisions.
For all their problems, the rankings have become a high-stakes enterprise that
have implications for academe worldwide. For this reason alone, they must be taken
seriously and understood. An indication of the extent of the enterprise is the IREG
Observatory on Academic Ranking and Excellence, which recently concluded its
fifth conference, which attracted 160 participants from 50 countries, in Berlin.
There can only be 100 among the top 100 universities, by definition. Yet, because
the National University of Singapore improves does not mean, for example, that the
Ohio State University is in decline. There should be room at the top for whatever
2 Dreams and Realities: The World-Class Idea and Saudi Arabian Higher Education 17
number of world-class universities meet the criteria. Indeed, as countries accept the
need to build and sustain research universities and to invest in higher education
generally, it is inevitable that the number of distinguished research universities
will grow. The investments made in higher education by China, South Korea,
Taiwan, Hong Kong, and Singapore in the past several decades have resulted in the
dramatic improvement of those countries top universities. Japan showed similar
improvements a decade or two earlier. The rise of Asian universities, however, is
only partly reflected in the rankings since it is not easy to knock the traditional
leaders off their perches. The rankings undervalue the advances in Asia and perhaps
other regions. As fewer American and British universities will inevitably appear in
the top 100 in the future, this does not mean that their universities are in decline.
Instead, improvement is taking place elsewhere. This is a cause for celebration and
not criticism.
Perhaps a better idea than rankings is an international categorisation similar to
the Carnegie Classification of Institutions of Higher Education in the United States.
Between 1970 and 2005, the Carnegie Foundation provided a carefully defined set of
categories of colleges and universities and then assigned placements of institutions
in these categories according to clear criteria. The schools were not ranked but rather
delineated according to their missions. This would avoid the zero-sum problem.
Many argue that the specific ranking number of a university makes little difference.
What may have validity is the range of institutions in which a university finds itself.
Moreover, what may be useful is whether an institution is in a range of 1525 or
150170 not whether it is 17 or 154. Delineating by category might capture reality
better.
In a word nowhere. One of the main functions of any university is largely ignored
in all of the rankings. Why? Because the quality and impact of teaching is virtually
impossible to measure and quantify. Further, measuring and comparing the quality
and impact of teaching across countries and academic systems are even more
difficult factors. Thus, the rankings have largely ignored teaching. The new Times
Higher Education (THE) rankings have recognised the importance of teaching and
have assigned several proxies to measure teaching. These topics include reputational
questions about teaching, teacher-student ratios, numbers of PhDs awarded per
staff member, and several others. The problem is that these criteria do not actually
measure teaching, and none even come close to assessing quality of impact. Further,
it seems unlikely that asking a cross section of academics and administrators about
teaching quality will yield much useful information. At least, THE has recognised
the importance of the issue.
18 A. Mazi and P.G. Altbach
As will be analysed in the following sections, Saudi Arabia has, over time, not done
particularly well in the rankings. Nor have the Arab countries generally. This is not
surprising, for the following reasons:
Postgraduate (graduate) education, especially at the doctoral level, is new and
limited in scope. Top research universities excel in their postgraduate pro-
grammes. Research-oriented professors prefer to teach in such programmes, and
students also contribute original work as well as publications, further contributing
to high rankings.
Most high-ranking universities have a long history of research excellence, and the
universities in the Kingdom and the region are relatively new: few, if any, have
a significant tradition of research. There are some examples of new research-
intensive universities, but these are difficult to establish and sustain (Altbach and
Salmi 2011). It is possible that the new King Abdullah University of Science and
Technology (KAUST) will emerge as a research powerhouse in the coming years.
Most of the highly ranked universities are in a few Western countries, and most
notably the United States and United Kingdom. Relatively few are in countries
outside the major traditional centres.
English is the main language of science and scholarship, and the rankings
emphasise publication in the major English-language journals. Saudi Arabia and
2 Dreams and Realities: The World-Class Idea and Saudi Arabian Higher Education 19
the Arab region generally use English for a part of academic work, but facility in
English needs improvement.
Saudi Arabia is developing a research-oriented academic culture, but this takes
time, and a continuing emphasis.
It is likely that the kingdom is currently emphasising the development of more
research universities than can be sustained due to the population base and the
availability of skilled academics. Concentration on a few top research universities
would yield better results in the rankings.
Top ranking universities typically emphasise graduate programmes at the masters
and especially the doctoral levels, and Saudi Arabia is in the early stages of
building capacity in doctoral programmes.
The rankings are, rightly or wrongly, perceived in terms of quality and prestige,
and universities are judged by them. Government and the public at large often
take the rankings seriously in terms of funding allocations or choices of where
to study. The rankings are now of considerable importance everywhere. In the
developed countries, universities are very much concerned by their competitive
positions. Universities in many developing countries are increasingly conscious of
the rankings, even though they are at a significant disadvantage in the race.
The announcement of the Webometrics ranking result in 2006, with the low
rankings of Saudi universities, raised significant concerns about the status and the
quality of Saudi universities, not only by government officials but also by parents,
students, and Saudi society in general. The bright side of the ranking fever for
Saudi universities is that as a result, the government initiated an inquiry to look
into the quality of teaching and learning processes, information technology (IT)
and infrastructure facilities, research and graduate studies, and the quality of faculty
members and other teaching and support staff.
By the end of 2010, there were 24 public universities in Saudi Arabia, which can
be grouped into five categories: comprehensive with a research focus, specialised
with a research focus, comprehensive, specialised, and teaching universities.
King Saud University (KSU), established in 1957, is the oldest university in the
Kingdom of Saudi Arabia and the Arabian Peninsula as a whole. It is the largest in
terms of faculty members (more than 8300), students (more than 70,000), academic
programmes (more than 150), and budget (almost $US 2.1 billion in 2010/2011).
Table 2.1 shows the universities within the different categories.
King Abdullah University for Science and Technology (KAUST) is a highly
specialised science and technology university. It is not officially counted among
public universities because it is a unique, highly specialised university, with different
goals and missions from any other public university in Saudi Arabia.
There are quite different missions among the different categories of universities
in Saudi Arabia. Most of the universities established in the last decade focus
20 A. Mazi and P.G. Altbach
on teaching and are located away from the metropolitan centres. Many are still
under construction. They have challenges in finding well-qualified faculty. Special
allowances are provided for those who agree to teach at these new institutions. The
lack of research infrastructure ensures that teaching is the main focus, although
research facilities may be added (Tayeb and Damanhouri 2011).
It is not surprising, then, that the older and more well-established universities
do better in the rankings and are more highly respected in the country and
internationally.
improve internal and external quality. The ranking issue has been seriously debated
since 2007, both within and outside the university community. Some argue that the
rankings have no relevance and thus should be ignored, while others suggest that
they deserve close attention.
Table 2.3 Rank of Saudi universities among Arab countries universities in Webometrics
University name July 2007 July 2008 Jan 2009 July 2009 Jan 2010 July 2010 Jan 2011
King Saud 26 1 1 1 1 1 1
University
KFUPM 1 2 2 2 2 2 2
King Abdulaziz 23 6 3 5 3 3 4
University
Umm al-Qura 5 4 6
University
King Faisal 36 11 7 4 6 15 10
University
Imam Muhammad 69 16 9 3 4 3
ibn Saud
University
Source: Webometrics website 20072011
The Times Higher Education-QS ranking had been conducted by a British firm since
2004 providing, among other things, a comparison among world universities in
the areas of engineering and technology, arts and humanities, social sciences and
management, natural sciences, and life sciences and medicine. Its ranking relied on
six indicators: academic peer review, employer review, citations per faculty member,
descriptions of students and faculty, international faculty, and international students.
On 30 October 2009, Times Higher Education broke with QS and signed an
agreement with Thomson Reuters to provide the data for its annual World Rankings.
THE builds its ranks based on a range of indicators that touch on many aspects of
the quality of research, as well as on several aspects of academic conduct. In 2010,
King Saud University was ranked 221 on the THE-QS, while King Fahd University
of Petroleum and Minerals was ranked 255, and King Abdulaziz University was
ranked 401450. No Saudi university was reported among the top 200 world-class
universities in the new THE list of 20102011.
The Shanghai Jiao Tong International Ranking, known officially as the Academic
Ranking of World Universities (ARWU 2010), was first conducted in 2003 by the
Institute of Higher Education in Shanghai Jiao Tong University. The purpose was
2 Dreams and Realities: The World-Class Idea and Saudi Arabian Higher Education 23
The Webometrics list, announced in 2006, has had a significant impact on Saudi
society: people have discussed and raised questions about the quality of higher
education in the country. As a result of this debate, all universities have begun
to evaluate and assess the quality of their teaching and research. In addition,
government officials and the Ministry of Higher Education have started to focus
on university quality and productivity.
As mentioned earlier, there are now 24 public universities in the kingdom,
several of which are less than 10 years old. The country now has a differentiated
academic system, and the new universities have little focus on research, if any:
their missions are to provide quality teaching. The research-intensive universities
are few. Other universities are comprehensive, splitting attention between teaching
and research, but with the main focus on teaching. Differentiated missions are a
defining phenomenon of Saudi Universities.
What are the features of a world-class university system? This is a big question. If
we look to the needs of Saudi Arabia, it is clear that higher education institutions
with diverse missions are required. Key concerns of a differentiated system include
the following:
1. The ability to respond to the growing student demand to enrol in higher education
institutions and especially in the most popular programmes of study
2. An acceptable level of skills and competencies of university graduates (quality
in teaching and learning)
3. Internationalisation aspects of higher education, including efforts of Saudi
universities to be more involved in all aspects of global higher education,
including students as well as faculty mobility, and recognition of certificates and
qualifications from other countries
4. Response to local needs as well as an international research agenda
24 A. Mazi and P.G. Altbach
The Ministry of Higher Education in Saudi Arabia has supported and funded several
projects and initiatives to enhance the quality and to improve the efficiency of public
as well as private universities. All these efforts have contributed in recent times to
improving the quality of teaching, learning, and research, and they have indirectly
contributed to improving the overall status of several Saudi universities in some of
the rankings.
In early June 2009, the Ministry of Higher Education announced a national
programme to promote excellence in university education in order to achieve world-
class status essentially this is a like an Accelerated Program for Excellence
(APEX). Some of the objectives of the programme are the following:
Aligning university efforts towards achieving world-class excellence in teaching
and research and community services
Encouraging partnerships with local and international research and industrial
organisations
Informing the academic community of what it takes to achieve world-class
standard
Promoting excellence in research
Graduating students who have the skills to be employable and who are competi-
tive with graduates from other countries
Using the ranking indices and benchmarks in the rankings as guidelines to
achieve excellence
Promoting competition within the universities locally
The aim of the programme is for at least 5 universities to rank in the Times
Higher Education ranking by 2013 (with at least 3 in the top 150) and at least 3
universities in the Shanghai ranking by 2015. By achieving these targeted rankings,
the universities will need to develop significant strengths in the various categories
measured by the rankings.
Enhanced quality within university activities in research, publications in
internationally recognised scientific journals, accreditation of some programmes
by international accreditors, improved faculty quality in teaching and research,
2 Dreams and Realities: The World-Class Idea and Saudi Arabian Higher Education 25
and also establishing research and laboratory facilities with high-quality standards
and reliable infrastructure are also necessary parts of building effective research
universities. In addition, strategic planning, the involvement of Saudi universities
in international scientific events, winning local as well as international academic
prizes, and diversifying funding are additional necessities for effective and globally
recognised research universities for Saudi Arabia.
Conclusion
This chapter has analysed the concept of the world-class university in the context of
Saudi Arabia, and has examined the international rankings, and Saudi Arabias place
in the rankings. It has been argued that the idea of world class must be broadened to
include the entire Saudi system of higher education, and the kingdoms goal should
be to provide excellence at all levels of the system. The pinnacle of the system,
the research universities, which are the subject of the rankings and which receive
the greatest attention in the kingdom as well as globally, is, of course, of great
importance. They provide advanced education and produce most of the research.
The research universities are Saudi Arabias link to the global knowledge economy.
It is the view of the authors that the rankings, which are discussed in this chapter,
have received too much emphasis, although they are useful metrics by which to
measure the kingdoms academic achievements, as well as its weaknesses. The
challenge is to take what is useful in the rankings and use those ideas to improve
higher education in Saudi Arabia.
References
Task Force on Higher Education and Society. (2000). Higher education in developing countries:
Peril and promise. Washington, DC: The World Bank.
Tayeb, O., & Damanhouri, Z. A. (2011). Transformation toward a world-class university: Action
and prospects in the case of King Abdulaziz University. In N. C. Liu, Q. Wang, & J.
Cheng (Eds.), Paths to a world-class universities: Lessons from practices and experiences
(pp. 275282). Rotterdam: Sense Publishers.
Webometrics. http://www.webometrics.info/top100 continent.asp?cont=aw. Accessed
30 Oct 2011.