An Insight into Lifelong Learning for Saudi Arabia V4 · Saudi Arabia to establish a national...

TAKAMOL HOLDINGAn Insight into Lifelong Learning for Saudi Arabia

November 2019

Vocational Education and Training in the Kingdom, identifying its emphasis as a core feature of the economic success of Saudi Arabia’s Vision 2030.

The paper assesses international examples which demonstrate the wide acknowledgement of the sustainable benefits of lifelong learning around the world, with its application visible in policies adopted by the United Nations, European Union, as well as national policies adopted by countries such as Bulgaria, Republic of Korea, Singapore, Norway and the United Kingdom. The paper puts forward five specific recommendations in relation to lifelong learning in Saudi Arabia:

1. Saudi Arabia to establish a national Lifelong Learning Authority.

2. Saudi Arabia national Lifelong Learning Authority to develop a national Lifelong Learning Strategy.

3. Design and implement a new standard for data capture, reporting and monitoring across the lifelong learning lifecycle, to enable consistent and accurate analysis of participation and attainment across primary, secondary, vocational and tertiary educational institutes in Saudi Arabia.

4. Ministry of Education to commission evaluation of the Kingdom’s current tertiary education funding strategy.

5. Technical and Vocational Training Cooperation to develop a national, relevant, engaging campaign, exploring behavioural and social marketing interventions to increase the attractiveness of Technical and Vocational Educational Training and high-skilled manual job selection.

ExecutiveSummary

This paper provides an insight into lifelong learning in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, covering the existing learning landscape across the lifecycle, from cradle to grave. The current provision, uptake and success of existing formal and informal education from early childhood education and care, primary and secondary schooling, technical and vocational training, university and adult educational services are examined. The paper considers the interconnectivity between lifelong learning and the ability of the Kingdom’s labour market to meet the demand for skilled labour in the evolving environment brought about by the future of work, concluding that the existing structure of learning in the Kingdom is less joined up than it ought to be, without a central lifelong learning agency or focused strategy.

Research findings are presented based upon a review of the relevant literature surrounding lifelong learning in the context of Saudi Arabia, unearthing a deficit in participation and attainment during early years education relative to the average across OECD and partner countries, further demonstrating this to be a possible cause for less successful educational outcomes in later years. The paper also evaluates the low uptake of Technical and

While considerable emphasis has been placed on lifelong learning, a concept created by the United Nations Educational Scientific and Cultural Organisation (UNESCO) and the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) in the 1970’s, including most recently in the United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goals framework (2015)1, there is no real agreement on what exactly lifelong learning means. Interpretations of lifelong learning vary widely around the world, leaving the concept vague, without a coherent implementation strategy globally2.

Lifelong learning can be defined as the motivation for self-development, and pursuit for learning and personal growth, that takes place at all stages of the life cycle (from cradle to grave) and, in more recent iterations it has become life-wide; meaning it is embedded in all life contexts starting from early years education to the workplace, the home and also includes being an active-citizen in the community.

In the context of labour markets and socio-economics, lifelong learning is defined by the International Labour Organization (ILO) as "all learning activities undertaken throughout the life for the development of competencies and qualifications" where "competencies" cover the knowledge, skills, and know-how applied and mastered in a specific context, and "qualifications" mean a formal expression of the vocational or professional abilities of a worker which are recognised at international, national or sectoral levels3. Furthermore, lifelong learning is about providing both second chances to individuals to update basic skills, low-skills and key skills for employment, as well as the offering of quality learning opportunities at a more advanced level to those who are interested.

Locally, in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia the definition of lifelong learning is still not formalised. Although there are multiple elements of education, training, sponsorship, skills workshops and online learning all available and actively attended, there does require to be a more formal, methodical, strategic approach to ensure that all citizens and Kingdom-wide residents are able to access routeways to developing personal skills, lifelong experiences and embedding insights and knowledge throughout the lifecycle.

The need for a formal, accountable structure for lifelong learning in Saudi Arabia is more emphasised now than it has ever been, with the government’s sectoral development targets as part of Saudi Arabia’s 2030 Vision magnifying skills shortages in key industries, in addition to the broadening acknowledgement of the challenges brought about by the future of work.

As highlighted by ILO, training for a single lifetime qualification is no longer enough, training and education systems for the future need to be flexible and prepare individuals to learn over the course of their lifetime. With 45% of jobs in Saudi Arabia at risk of being automated by 20304, the infrastructure and encouragement for learning must be provided, to ensure workforce agility through well-equipped, multidimensionally-skilled workers.

The unsuitability of front-end educational and training models in modern economies has been recognised, with the return on improved skills proficiency resulting from increased education in recent decades yielding lower than expected results2. This too is reflected in the skills proficiency of the Saudi labour force, in the context of matching relevant skills with labour market requirements; for example, 54% of the 1,002,855 Saudi jobseekers in the Kingdom currently hold a bachelor’s degree, rising to 59% for Saudi female jobseekers.

Executive Summary

An Introductionto Lifelong Learning

11https://sustainabledevelopment.un.org/content/documents/2125203020%Agenda%20for%20Sustainable%20 Development%20web.pdf2https://www.ilo.org/wcmsp5/groups/public/---dgreports/---inst/documents/publication/wcms_646046.pdf

3Lifelong learning in the Philippines / Federico M. Macaranas ; ILO Subregional Office for South-East Asia and the Pacific. - Manila: ILO, 2007 109 p4http://www.oecd.org/employment/future-of-work/5https://www.stats.gov.sa/en/814

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Through effective and targeted lifelong learning, the key ambition is to provide more available, high-quality, evaluated, and targeted learning alongside more flexible solutions to ensure learning is accessible to all citizens at all ages across the Kingdom.

New informal learning spaces must also be accounted for to enable better interaction with and to complement formal education and training institutions from early childhood throughout life. This in turn can better support the attainment, recognition, validation and assessment of relevant competencies and qualifications within the labour force, whether acquired through formal or informal pathways, in alignment with the objectives of Vision 2030.

To effectively identify the impact opportunities through lifelong learning, it is important to understand the existing provision and enrollment of education and training within the Kingdom across the learning lifecycle, from early childhood education and care (ECEC), through school, university and the provision of technical and vocational training and education services.

When considering the age group pre-six years old, there remains many challenges with early years education in Saudi Arabia. As with many

Proven studies detail the importance of formal education in early childhood as essential for the development of human manpower; this is acknowledged by the Saudi Ministry of Education (MoE) which points to numerous neurological studies evidencing the marked significance of the period from three to eight years old in early childhood development. MoE identifies the interdependent and interleaved processes of an individual’s physical, social, emotional and mental development during this period and has established a clear commitment, through its Childhood General Department, to increase the availability, quality and uptake of ECEC in Saudi Arabia . MoE will measure the success of this commitment against their target to increase enrolment in kindergarten (age three to six) from 17% to 95% by 2030.

Compulsory education in Saudi Arabia starts at age six and ends at ends at age 15, with prima-ry education running from age six to age 11. Enrolment in primary education is high in Saudi Arabia with 99.77% of 6-11 year old children enrolled in 20188, this is consistent with the enrolment of children in compulsory education (five to 14 years) in all OECD countries, which equaled or exceeded 95% in 2018, other than the Slovak Republic which had an enrolment rate of 93%9.

Similarly, enrolment rates among this age group are almost universal across OECD partner countries, other than Colombia (87%), Costa Rica (93%) and South Africa (84%).

While enrolment in compulsory education in the Kingdom is high, it is important to consider comparative educational progress and outcomes as indicators by which to measure the effectiveness of the current primary education system in Saudi Arabia, for example:

• The most recent ranking for Saudi Arabia in the systematic international tests measuring student performance and level of literacy (2016), has demonstrated that Saudi Arabia is still behind in this area. Progress in International Reading Literacy Study (PIRLS), headed up by the International Association for the Evaluation of Educational Achievement (IEA) is an indepen-dent global standardised test measuring reading achievements of fourth grade students among participating countries. IEA studies focus on subjects relating to mathematics, science, reading, civic and citizenship educa-tion, computer and information literacy, and teacher education, amongst others. From the released 2016 results, Saudi Arabia ranked 44th out of 49 countries, well below the average scale score of 500 points10.

• Trends in International Mathematics and Science Study (TIMSS), also an IEA standardised test, on the other hand measures the mathemat-ics and science achievement of of 4th and 8th grade students. Latest recorded results for TIMSS were published in 2015 showing that Saudi Arabia ranked 46th out of the 49 partici-pating countries across mathematics and science for fourth graders11.

• Saudi Arabia ranked 7th highest of the OECD and partner countries in 2016 in terms of the number of over-age children (aged above their learning year by at least two years) enrolled in the last grade of primary education and the first grade of secondary education9.

other OECD and partner countries, education prior to the age of six is not compulsory, however enrollment in education and care among this age group in Saudi Arabia is well below the OECD average. Some key facts from OECD are detailed below6:

• In 2015, only 1% of three-year-olds were enrolled in any ECEC services in Saudi Arabia. The enrollment rate had increased to 5% in 2016 but remained well below the OECD average of 76% and indeed is the lowest enrollment rate among the OECD and partner countries. • The enrolment rate for four-year-olds increased by 12% in Saudi Arabia between 2015 and 2016, reaching 22%, well below the OECD average of 88%. • By the age of five, 50% of children were enrolled in some educational programme in 2016 (ECEC or primary), up from 37% in 2015; the OECD average is 95%. • By the age of six, the enrolment rate in Saudi Arabia was 97% in 2016, close to the OECD average of 98%.• In 2016, 56% of children attending pre-primary education were enrolled in public institutions in Saudi Arabia, compared to the OECD average of 68%.• The ratio of children to teaching staff in all institutions (both public and private) was 11:1 in 2016, lower than the average across OECD countries which is 14:1.

Enrolment rate in KSA compared with OECD average (2016)

26http://gpseducation.oecd.org/Content/EAGCountryNotes/SAU.pdf 7https://www.moe.gov.sa/en/PublicEducation/EducationDepartments/Pages/Early-Ch-dev-care-2.aspx

8http://uis.unesco.org/country/SA#slideoutmenu 9https://www.oecd-ilibrary.org/docserver/eag-201814-en.pdf?expires=1570004804&id=id&accname=guest&checksum=15747C8C217E4EAB5C4368C80C1B1F8710https://nces.ed.gov/surveys/pirls/pirls2016/tables/pirls2016_table01.asp11http://www.timss-sa.org.za/download/TIMSS-2015-Grade-5-National-Report.pdf12https://www.weforum.org/agenda/201709//countries-with-best-education-systems/

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Early Childhood Education and Care

PrimaryEducation

Low enrolment in pre-primary (age three to five) education appears to provide an indicator for this, with the highest ranking OECD partner countries ranking below the OECD average for over-age enrolment in primary (final grade) and secondary (first grade) education in 2016: Brazil (79.7%), Colombia (78.5%), and South Africa (17.2%) in the most recently published data (2015). In comparison, four out of seven of the OECD and partner countries with the lowest levels of enrolment of over-age children in primary and secondary education rank above the OECD average of 86.3% for enrolment in pre-primary education: New Zealand (93.2%), Sweden (95.9%), Korea (93.4%) and Denmark (97.6%), with Australia ranking just below the average (85%). • Saudi Arabia also ranks well above average for OECD and partner countries in terms of the number of adults that have not been educated further than primary school, 24% compared to the OECD average of 6%12. This is alarming given that programmes in lower secondary education, which immediately follows primary, build upon primary educational learning and aim to lay the foundations for lifelong learning and human development upon which further education is based13.

Generational bias within the Saudi population must be considered in this regard, with an improvement in intergenerational educational attainment. For example, the percentage of individuals who have not attained upper second-ary education among 25-34-year olds was 31% in 2014, less than half of the share of 55-64-year-olds who have not attained upper secondary education (69%), but still twice the OECD average (15% in 2017)14.

Translated to the labour force, despite the high number of adults that have not been educated beyond primary level in Saudi Arabia, this is not the highest represented group within the unem-ployment figures. In Q2 of 2019 just 4.1% of the total unemployed population in the Kingdom were educated at primary level or below, slightly rising for males to 5.6%. During

the same period, of the Saudi nationals employed in the Kingdom, 5.38% were educat-ed to primary level or below, again increasing for males to 7.13%.

This suggests that failure to progress beyond primary education does not necessarily pose a barrier to employment within the Kingdom, though we know that higher levels of education-al attainment are associated with several positive economic and social outcomes for individuals. Highly educated individuals are more socially engaged and have higher employ-ment rates and higher relative earnings. Higher proficiency in literacy and numeracy is also strongly associated with higher levels of formal education15.

For example, there is a direct correlation between educational attainment and earnings in Saudi Arabia. According to GASTAT Labour Force Survey Q2 of 2019, the aver-age monthly salary for a Saudi national educated to primary level was SAR 6,388, rising to SAR 8,819 for those educated to secondary level and SAR 12,211 for bache-lor’s educated individuals, with further incre-mental increases positively correlated with further educational attainment.

Average Salaries relative to Educational Attainment

3 years 4 years 5 years 6 years Pre-PrimaryKSA OECD Average

%100

%120

%80

%60

%40

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ate

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Secondary education in Saudi Arabia is compul-sory from age 11-15 (lower secondary), with further non-compulsory vocational education from age 15-18 (upper secondary). Low enrol-ment relative to OECD and partner countries in Saudi Arabia translates into low labour force participation amongst Saudi nationals not educated to secondary level:

• Saudi Arabia ranks above the OECD average for the rate of 25-34-year olds without upper secondary education, ranking 12th highest of OECD and partner countries in 201716.

• 19% of adults in Saudi Arabia were recorded as having lower secondary education as their highest educational level attained in 2017, while the figure increased to 32% for upper secondary as the highest educational level attained.

• Labour force participation among Saudi nationals who are educated to secondary level is 43.6%. This drops to 13% for females.

On average across OECD countries, 35% of adults (age 25-64) who have not completed upper secondary education are inactive, compared to 20% of adults with upper second-ary or post-secondary non-tertiary education and 12% of adults with a tertiary degree.In Saudi Arabia, economic participation rate is

calculated based on the age group 15+, there-fore data is not directly comparable to OECD findings, however based on the figures for those aged 15+ in Saudi Arabia, labour force participation in the Kingdom is lagging behind. Total participation for Saudi nationals educated below secondary level does not exceed 25.5%, dropping to 7.7% for females.

A key challenge is faced in the Kingdom, with those classified as youth NEETs (youth not in employment, education or training); 38% among the 15-29 age group in 2018, rising to over 50% among the female population (15-29 years), significantly higher than the OECD average of 15% for males and 17% for females17.

In Saudi Arabia, where 76% of the employed workforce is comprised of foreign national workers (as of Q2 2019), an objective of the national skills policy has been the Saudization of the workforce. There has been dramatic underrepresentation of Saudi nationals in many fast-growing sectors over the last decade, such as electronics, ICT, construction, logistics, refrig-eration and air conditioning and tourism18,and there has been a low appetite among Saudi nationals to seek employment in these sectors.

Proven studies detail the importance of formal education in early childhood as essential for the development of human manpower; this is acknowledged by the Saudi Ministry of Education (MoE) which points to numerous neurological studies evidencing the marked significance of the period from three to eight years old in early childhood development. MoE identifies the interdependent and interleaved processes of an individual’s physical, social, emotional and mental development during this period and has established a clear commitment, through its Childhood General Department, to increase the availability, quality and uptake of ECEC in Saudi Arabia . MoE will measure the success of this commitment against their target to increase enrolment in kindergarten (age three to six) from 17% to 95% by 2030.

Compulsory education in Saudi Arabia starts at age six and ends at ends at age 15, with prima-ry education running from age six to age 11. Enrolment in primary education is high in Saudi Arabia with 99.77% of 6-11 year old children enrolled in 20188, this is consistent with the enrolment of children in compulsory education (five to 14 years) in all OECD countries, which equaled or exceeded 95% in 2018, other than the Slovak Republic which had an enrolment rate of 93%9.

Similarly, enrolment rates among this age group are almost universal across OECD partner countries, other than Colombia (87%), Costa Rica (93%) and South Africa (84%).

While enrolment in compulsory education in the Kingdom is high, it is important to consider comparative educational progress and outcomes as indicators by which to measure the effectiveness of the current primary education system in Saudi Arabia, for example:

• The most recent ranking for Saudi Arabia in the systematic international tests measuring student performance and level of literacy (2016), has demonstrated that Saudi Arabia is still behind in this area. Progress in International Reading Literacy Study (PIRLS), headed up by the International Association for the Evaluation of Educational Achievement (IEA) is an indepen-dent global standardised test measuring reading achievements of fourth grade students among participating countries. IEA studies focus on subjects relating to mathematics, science, reading, civic and citizenship educa-tion, computer and information literacy, and teacher education, amongst others. From the released 2016 results, Saudi Arabia ranked 44th out of 49 countries, well below the average scale score of 500 points10.

• Trends in International Mathematics and Science Study (TIMSS), also an IEA standardised test, on the other hand measures the mathemat-ics and science achievement of of 4th and 8th grade students. Latest recorded results for TIMSS were published in 2015 showing that Saudi Arabia ranked 46th out of the 49 partici-pating countries across mathematics and science for fourth graders11.

• Saudi Arabia ranked 7th highest of the OECD and partner countries in 2016 in terms of the number of over-age children (aged above their learning year by at least two years) enrolled in the last grade of primary education and the first grade of secondary education9.

3

Low enrolment in pre-primary (age three to five) education appears to provide an indicator for this, with the highest ranking OECD partner countries ranking below the OECD average for over-age enrolment in primary (final grade) and secondary (first grade) education in 2016: Brazil (79.7%), Colombia (78.5%), and South Africa (17.2%) in the most recently published data (2015). In comparison, four out of seven of the OECD and partner countries with the lowest levels of enrolment of over-age children in primary and secondary education rank above the OECD average of 86.3% for enrolment in pre-primary education: New Zealand (93.2%), Sweden (95.9%), Korea (93.4%) and Denmark (97.6%), with Australia ranking just below the average (85%). • Saudi Arabia also ranks well above average for OECD and partner countries in terms of the number of adults that have not been educated further than primary school, 24% compared to the OECD average of 6%12. This is alarming given that programmes in lower secondary education, which immediately follows primary, build upon primary educational learning and aim to lay the foundations for lifelong learning and human development upon which further education is based13.

Generational bias within the Saudi population must be considered in this regard, with an improvement in intergenerational educational attainment. For example, the percentage of individuals who have not attained upper second-ary education among 25-34-year olds was 31% in 2014, less than half of the share of 55-64-year-olds who have not attained upper secondary education (69%), but still twice the OECD average (15% in 2017)14.

Translated to the labour force, despite the high number of adults that have not been educated beyond primary level in Saudi Arabia, this is not the highest represented group within the unem-ployment figures. In Q2 of 2019 just 4.1% of the total unemployed population in the Kingdom were educated at primary level or below, slightly rising for males to 5.6%. During

the same period, of the Saudi nationals employed in the Kingdom, 5.38% were educat-ed to primary level or below, again increasing for males to 7.13%.

This suggests that failure to progress beyond primary education does not necessarily pose a barrier to employment within the Kingdom, though we know that higher levels of education-al attainment are associated with several positive economic and social outcomes for individuals. Highly educated individuals are more socially engaged and have higher employ-ment rates and higher relative earnings. Higher proficiency in literacy and numeracy is also strongly associated with higher levels of formal education15.

For example, there is a direct correlation between educational attainment and earnings in Saudi Arabia. According to GASTAT Labour Force Survey Q2 of 2019, the aver-age monthly salary for a Saudi national educated to primary level was SAR 6,388, rising to SAR 8,819 for those educated to secondary level and SAR 12,211 for bache-lor’s educated individuals, with further incre-mental increases positively correlated with further educational attainment.

Average Salaries relative to Educational Attainment

SecondaryEducation

Technical and Vocational Educational and Training (TVET)

13https://www.oecd-ilibrary.org/docserver/eag-201814--en.pdf?expires=1570004804&id=id&accname=guest&checksum=15747C8C217E4EAB5C4368C80C1B1F87

14https://www.weforum.org/agenda/201709//countries-with-best-education-systems/

15https://www.oecd-ilibrary.org/docserver/eag-2018-en.pdf?expires=1570085663&id=id&accname=guest&checksum=76040F2E19E917345CC20F075B3A6769 16https://www.oecd-ilibrary.org/docserver/eag-2018-en.pdf?expires=1570085663&id=id&accname=guest&checksum=76040F2E19E917345CC20F075B3A6769

17 https://takamolholding.com/wp-content/uploads/201810//NEETS-English.pdf

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0

2,000

4,000

6,000

8,000

10,000

12,000

14,000

Primary Secondary Bachelor’s Educated

Primary Secondary Bachelors

Ave

rage

Sal

ary

(SA

R)

6,388

8,819

12,211

Taking Logistics for example, a focus growth sector of the Saudi 2030 Vision, low desirability amongst Saudi nationals to work in many Logis-tics industries is characterized by actual and perceived poor working conditions and low wages relative to other sectors (e.g. employ-ment within the public sector)19.Consistent with this, has been the low uptake of vocational training programmes, thus the supply of Saudi nationals with the appropriate vocational skills to meet the demands of the labour market.

In 2015, only 7% of high school graduates enrolled in a vocational training program; with the government targeting an increase in this figure to 12.5% by 2020. One of the strategies adopted in a bid to achieve this target has been the increased provision of good-quality training, including improving the quality of TVET and raising the status of the teaching profession generally. For example, by establish-ing dedicated teacher training colleges and combining academic preparation, educational theory and practice, and experience in industry for new and existing teachers. Technical and Vocational Training Corporation (TVTC) and Colleges of Excellence (CoE) now exist in Saudi Arabia, these are described in more detail below.

TVTC is a government body responsible for developing, providing and licensing training and vocational programmes in the Kingdom in response to labour market demand, as well as for legislating laws and regulations relevant to the quality and adequacy of such programmes and for their supervision. This involves design-ing and developing curriculum for Higher Tech-nical Institutes, providing services to assist with trainee affairs, in addition to qualifying and developing the national human resources across technical and vocational fields accord-ing to labour market demand.

TVTC provides accreditation to vocational institutes, for example Laureate Vocational Saudi Arabia (LVSA), part of Laureate Interna-tional Universities Network, which provides

vocational training programmes to over 6,000 students across eight colleges in the Kingdom, specifically designed to prepare young adults for successful and long-term employability20. CoE were established in Saudi Arabia in 2013, with the objective of increasing the capacity and quality of TVET in the Kingdom. Initially opening 10 Colleges, rising to 37 in 2015, CoE have built successful partnerships with 14 international top-level learning providers to offer training in multiple disciplines that focus on Saudi employer needs, enabling employees to gain world class qualifications while enabling employers to develop a motivated and skilled workforce. CoE have signed a number of mem-orandums of understanding (MOUs) to develop training programmes in many sectors, including concerning Hajj and Umrah operations and in the field of offshore platform construction.

4

TertiaryEducation

Despite a high rate of those classified youth NEETs, Saudi Arabia has a high enrolment rate in tertiary education programmes amongst nationals, relative to the average across the OECD countries. The most recently published education and training survey illustrates that 55% of the population of Saudi nationals aged 20-21 years old were enrolled in a Bachelors programme in 2017, compared to the average of 32% across the

OECD countries in the same year21. This highlights an additional challenge to increasing participation in TVET for in-demand practical occupations in the Kingdom, with secondary graduates not in a hurry to seek entry to the labour market.

Enrolment in public institutions is also higher in Saudi Arabia than the OECD average, with 95% of tertiary students enrolled in public institu-tions in 2017, compared to the OECD average of 71%; this is largely due to the fact that enrol-ment in tertiary education programmes in public institutions is heavily subsidised by the government in Saudi Arabia, under its SAR 193 billion public education budget (2019)22.

This financial support extends beyond the education providers and institutions within the Kingdom, with a high proportion of Saudi nationals completing subsidised tertiary educa-tion programmes overseas, for example under The Custodian of the Two Hold Mosques schol-arship programme first launched by King Abdul-lah in 200523. In 2015, Saudi Arabia had the highest outbound mobility among the G20 countries for tertiary education programmes, with a rate of 5.6%, indicating that for every 100 higher education students studying in Saudi Arabia, there were six students enrolled in higher education institutions outside of the Kingdom24.

Higher levels of educational attainment are correlated with higher economic participation. For example, 75.9% of Saudi nationals that hold a bachelor’s degree actively partici-pate in the labour force, increasing to 83.1% for those who have a master’s degree and 86.2% for those with a doctor-ate. However, despite this trend, Saudi Arabia faces an increasing issue with high levels of unemployment among its educated labour force, particularly females.

• By educational attainment, the largest group affected by unemployment in the Kingdom is female Saudi graduates, with almost 68% of unemployed females holding a bachelor’s degree.

18http://uis.unesco.org/sites/default/files/documents/ip50-skills-innovation-g20-countries-2018-en.pdf 19World Bank. 2016a. The Labour Market in Saudi Arabia: An Anlysis of three relative surveys20http://www.laureatevocational.sa/our-impact/

21http://read.oecd-library.org/education/education-at-a-glance-2019_f8d-en#page6622

https://home.kpmg/content/dam/kpmg/sa/pdf/2018/kingdom-of-saudi-arabia-budget-report.pdf23https://www.universityworldnews.com/post.php?story=2015120819081789624http://uis.unesco.org/sites/default/files/documents/ip50-skills-innovation-g20-countries-2018-en.pdf

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• There were 28,786 more Saudi females with a bachelor’s degree seeking employment in Q2 of 2019 than in Q1 of 2019, suggesting a worsen-ing of the issue.

• When considering a comparison with OECD countries, Saudi Arabia ranks 2nd, behind only Greece, in terms of the unem-ployment rate of those aged 25-64 who have graduated from tertiary education.

There is however wide acknowledgement of a skills mismatch within the Kingdom, highlight-ing the significance of not only attainment but also the nature of attainment within tertiary education programmes. For example, the largest share of graduates across tertiary education programmes in Saudi Arabia are distributed across the fields of:

• Arts and Humanities (23%) • Business Administration and Law (21%) • Education (15%)

yet these fields are the most prevalent among unemployed Saudi graduates, 27.5%, 13.7% and 19.5% respectively.

It would be, based on these facts, easy to hypothesize that the solution to high graduate unemployment lies in the effective matching of tertiary educational paths for Saudi nationals, with active labour market opportunities. This however would be to simplify to a great extent, a much more dynamic and complex macroeconomic challenge facing the Saudi labour market, to which skills matching may only account for part of the solution.

5

This is evidenced in the over-representation of unemployed Saudi tertiary graduates in key growth sectors too, such as Engineering, Manufacturing and Construction, where Saudi Arabia is also below the OECD average for employment, despite possessing sought-after skills for the sector25. This unused human capital represents a waste of skills and of the initial investment in those skills, which are bound to depreciate if unutilised because of inactivity26.

Historically the adult literacy rate for Saudi Arabia has been recorded as low, with 62.29% of females and 87.06% of males over the age of 15 classified as literate in 200027. However great progress in this area has been achieved with adult literacy no longer posing a barrier to lifelong learning for most adults in the Kingdom. World Bank reports that in 2015 the rate of full-literacy among individuals aged over 15 years old in Saudi Arabia was 91.84% for females and 96.95% for males11. It is evident that strong progress is being made towards the Kingdom’s vision to eradicate illiteracy by 2024.

Underpinning the evident progress in adult literacy in the Kingdom has been the expansion of educational services, the increased absorp-tion and accessibility of learning amongst younger generations and improvements in

AdultEducation

Network34, as well as the active initiatives of Tatweer and Doroob; described in more detail below.

NCeL was set up in 2005 to serve as a leader, supervisor and supporter of e-learning and distance learning, for its adoption in university level education in Saudi Arabia. It is responsible for designing, improving, maintaining and enhancing the quality of digital educational content in the Kingdom with the objective of providing greater opportunities for those who speak Arabic. It was established due to overpop-ulation, lack of quantity and quality faculty, and to reduce wastage of funding (in the areas of accredited programmes coordination, training methods, and production of educational aids). NCeL aims to enhance the progress of educa-tion and learning, by moving from outdated/tra-ditional styles which do not account for differ-ent learning styles within the national popula-tion, to a multitude of delivery options and aid resources facilitating learner comprehension.

Tatweer Educational Holding Company (THC) is owned by the Public Investment Fund and managed by a board representing MoE, Ministry of Finance (MoF) and several represen-tatives of the private sector. THC promotes educational performance standards in the Kingdom and aims to enhance the development of the Kingdom’s educational sector. Its vision is to provide exceptional educational solutions in line with international standards, supported by integrated e-solutions along with blended professional development programmes.

In promoting educational performance standards, Tatweer attends conferences and shares expertise and best practice with interna-tional partners in order to improve the level of education in the Kingdom, for example recently signing an MOU with Emirati Alef Company for Educational Technology, to enrich digital content and provide digital solutions for both public and private education sectors35.

provides another useful resource through their National E-Learning Platform, one of the initiatives of the Human Resource Devel-opment Fund (HRDF) which aims to empower the national workforce and to assist youths, including job seekers, students in career devel-opment, companies and business owners, to meet the demands of the Saudi labour market. The focus of Doroob is on upskilling learners through digital content across the dimensions of Critical Skills, Attitude, Work-Relevant Experi-ence and Job Search. The Deputy Director-Gen-eral of HRDF reported that some 1.4 million citizens have enrolled in Doroob’s training programmes to date, and since its establish-ment, 4.4 million training courses have been completed36.

28https://www.edx.org/29https://www.coursera.org/30https://www.udemy.com/31https://www.nadrus.com/view-courses

32https://www.edraak.org/en/partner/edraak/33https://www.rwaq.org/courses34https://shms.sa/learn-more/35http://www.arabnews.com/node/1459611/saudi-arabia

Sources:

terms of the quality of educational content. One area that has facilitated this, with the potential to further expand opportunities for adult education is through e-learning. E-learn-ing has great potential to provide access for the increasing population of the Kingdom, includ-ing extending the reach of high-quality, diverse learning content to connect those based in the most remote areas.

In the self-directed, continuous quest to seek formal or informal education, either for personal enjoyment or to develop career skills, individuals’ preferences for learning are evolving. So too are the meth-ods, content and spaces for learning being radically transformed, by technological development, the spectacular growth in internet connectivity and mobile penetra-tion, and the expansion of the cyber world.

The internet has transformed how people access information and knowledge, how they interact, and how they engage in social, civic and economic activities. The increased availabili-ty and access to diverse sources of knowledge are expanding opportunities for learning, which may be less structured and more innovative than they once were.

This trend is recognised globally with the increased development, availability and access of digital content, e-learning, nanodegrees and Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCS), through platforms such as EdX28, Coursera29 and Udemy30. Various institutions in Saudi Arabia have also supported this trend with the rollout of digital content on platforms such as Nadrus31, Edraak32, Rwaq33 and Aldarayn, in addition to Open Educational Resources (OER) through the National Centre for e-Learning (NCeL), in partnership with Saudi OER

Focus onDigital Content

While lifelong learning opportunities in Saudi Arabia do seem to be evolving, with the expansion of online learning services and the involvement of multiple agencies in the development of new learning methods and materials, there is still an incoherence in terms of an overall strategy for lifelong learning relative to other countries.

International benchmarking provides some useful insights into lifelong learning around the world, where national and multi-national lifelong learning strategies have been deployed. Some examples of the existing policies deployed around the world are included below; this list is not exhaustive:

• The United Nations in 2015 initiated the Sustainable Development Goals to be adopted by world leaders with the ambition of ending all

6

The targets set under Bulgaria’s lifelong learning strategy to 2020 are centered around its core approach:

• Implementing an educational approach that supports the development of all learners and contributes to the development of thinking, capable and proactive people capable of coping with change and insecurity;• Improving the quality of education and training.

• Providing an educational environment for equal access to lifelong learning, active social inclusion and active citizenship.

• Stimulating education and training tailored to the needs of the economy and changes in the labor market.

The implementation of Bulgaria’s National Lifelong Learning Strategy places a National Lifelong Learning Council as the Strategic Implementation Coordination Group which establishes annual plans for actions and stakeholder interactions, coordinating with multiple agencies through a National Lifelong Learning Platform to monitor performance and produce annual reports on progress against the agreed targets.

• Republic of Korea has established The Lifelong Education Act requiring the Ministry of Education to develop a comprehensive national lifelong education promotion plan every five years. The national plan aims to set up medium- and long-term policy objectives to promote lifelong learning in the Republic of Korea. The national plan prescribes the foundation of lifelong learning and dictates the allocation of financial and other resources. Policy outcomes are analysed and evaluated periodically against the objectives. The first National Lifelong Learning Promotion Plan was established by MoE in 2002, followed up by a second in 2006. The third national plan was announced in 2013, particularly highlighting the importance of lifelong learning for enhancing the quality of life for Koreans and supporting Korea’s

forms of poverty, fighting inequalities, protecting the planet and ensuring prosperity for all, as part of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development. As part of this agenda, 17 Sustainable Development Goals were agreed in 2016, with specific targets to be implemented ahead of 2030. Governments, businesses and civil society together with the United Nations have begun to mobilize efforts to achieve these objectives, including Sustainable Development Goal number 4, which focuses on Quality Education, ensuring inclusive and equitable quality education and promotes lifelong learning opportunities for all37.

Figure 1 – The United Nations Sustainable Development Goals 2030

• UNESCO has seven education institutes focused on education improvement, including an Institute for Lifelong Learning (UIL). It supports member states in the field of lifelong learning with a focus on adult and continuing education, literacy and non-formal basic education. It focuses specifically on furthering educational equity for disadvantaged groups and in countries affected by poverty and conflict. The UIL has one of the largest libraries in the world within its specialised field and hosts the world’s longest-running journal of comparative education and lifelong learning.

• European Union (EU): The Education, Audiovisual and Culture Executive Agency (EACEA) is an agency of the EU located in Brussels, Belgium. It manages parts of the EU’s

programmes in education, culture, and audiovisual fields. EACEA have initiated an annual action plan to deliver the EU’s Lifelong Learning Strategy which sets firm measures to increase adult involvement in learning to 5% by 2020, as well as targeting wider coverage, for example to include a focus on disadvantaged groups38.

The EU also co-funds ‘The Lifelong Learning Platform’ through its Erasmus+ programme which comprises 42 European organisations active in the field of education, training and youth, representing a network of over 50,000 educational institutions and associations covering all sectors of formal, non-formal and informal learning to target equity, social cohesion and active citizenship within the context of lifelong learning39.

• Bulgaria set a national Lifelong Learning Strategy in 2014 in response to specific challenges within their economy, defining a strategic framework of education and training policy aimed specifically at achieving the European goal of clever, sustainable and comprehensive growth. The Bulgarian strategy, which covers all participants in the learning process from cradle to grave, addresses pre-primary education and training, general school education, vocational education and training, higher education, continuing adult education, in addition to validating non-formal learning outcomes and self-study.

Bulgaria’s lifelong learning strategy is to be measured around specific targets, including, to increase the share of children covered by pre-school education to 90% by 2020 (from 87.8% in 2012), increase the participation of people aged 25-64 in education and training to 5% in 2020 (from 1.5% in 2012) and to increase the employment rates of the population aged 20-64 from 63% in 2012 to 76% in 2020.

InternationalBenchmarking

36https://www.okaz.com.sa/article/167246837https://www.un.org/sustainabledevelopment/sustainable-development-goals/

38https://eacea.ec.europa.eu/homepage_en39https://lllplatform.eu/who-we-are/about-us/Sources:

While lifelong learning opportunities in Saudi Arabia do seem to be evolving, with the expansion of online learning services and the involvement of multiple agencies in the development of new learning methods and materials, there is still an incoherence in terms of an overall strategy for lifelong learning relative to other countries.

International benchmarking provides some useful insights into lifelong learning around the world, where national and multi-national lifelong learning strategies have been deployed. Some examples of the existing policies deployed around the world are included below; this list is not exhaustive:

• The United Nations in 2015 initiated the Sustainable Development Goals to be adopted by world leaders with the ambition of ending all

international comparisons, and to enable effective comparison against international benchmarks.

It is recommended that as a baseline for strategy formulation, the national Lifelong Learning Authority commissions a focused research paper on the existing measurement, recording, reporting and assessment of educational participation and attainment in the Kingdom, with a view to developing and publishing a new standard for Lifelong Learning in this domain. The Lifelong Learning Authority should consider how it can leverage the knowledge and experience of existing relevant stakeholders in the Kingdom, for example, Saudi Arabia National Center for Assessment, and the National Student Database to be designed under Vision 2030. 4. MOE to commission evaluation of the Kingdom’s current tertiary education funding strategy.

As per the recommendation put forward by World Bank, in the interest of better matching labour market opportunities with skills Saudi workers, the impact of current public education funding in the Kingdom warrants further evaluation.

While the suggestion of reducing the current tertiary education subsidy model may be radical, there are examples of many successful models around the world, including student financing in the UK. The establishment of an accountable umbrella body such as a national Lifelong Learning Authority in Saudi Arabia, specifically targeted on increasing job matching

• Decrease the percentage of adults who have not been educated beyond primary level in Saudi Arabia, from 24% to the OECD average of 6% by 2030.

• Half the percentage of Saudi tertiary graduates seeking employment from the current level of 54% by 2030, targeting a year-on-year increase in employment.

• Reduce Saudi Arabia’s NEETs rate from 38% to the OECD average of 15% by 2030.

• Reduce Saudi Arabia’s female NEETs rate from 50% to the OECD average of 17% by 2030.


The recording and reporting of educational participation and attainment in Saudi Arabia for the purpose of international comparison is sporadic. Saudi Arabia is included intermittently xin data sets collated by OECD, World Bank and ILO, with some standardised indicators reported on for the Kingdom and others not. To achieve real progress in the field of lifelong learning, education and skills, it is important that an accurate overall picture of the learning landscape in the Kingdom is gathered, to provide both diagnosis of the underlying challenges and barriers determining Saudi Arabia’s unfavorable standing in the available


The national strategy should set out a clear vision, mission and objectives for lifelong learning in Saudi Arabia, identifying all key stakeholders and defining specific key performance measures and clear responsibilities for their achievement across the lifelong learning value chain. The strategy should be owned and delivered by the Lifelong Learning Authority. Based on the information available, detailed throughout this paper, Saudi Arabia’s Lifelong Learning Strategy may include the following targets:

• Increase participation in ECEC from its current level in line with average participation across the OECD (76%). The lifelong learning Authority should test and validate the current target set by MoE of increasing participation among 3-6-year-olds from 17% to 95% by 2030. • Increase Saudi Arabia’s ranking on PIRLS for fourth graders’ attainment in mathematics, science, reading, civic and citizenship education, computer and information literacy and teacher education, from 44th to top 10 by 2030.

• Improve Saudi Arabia’s ranking for the number of overage children enrolled in the last year of primary education and the first year of secondary education across the OECD and partner countries, from 7th to 40th by 2030.

Emphasis on a lifelong learning solution in Saudi Arabia must acknowledge and evaluate the opportunity to both re-direct tertiary educational paths in alignment with labour market demand, as well as upskilling or re-training the existing labour force (in particular the high proportion of unemployed graduates) to better meet the needs of the labour market. The complexity of this challenge should not be underestimated, with profound structural reform the probable precursor to a more balanced labour market.

The Saudi government currently provides a high level of support to its citizens through heavily subsidized oil, energy and other consumption goods, free access to education and often health, meaning that there are little or no sanctions for Saudi nationals for making wrong education and skills choices, that is to say that they are well supported in all eventualities41. This coupled with the attractiveness of the public sector over the private sector to most labour market entrants, and the lack of interest in Technical and Vocational Education Training, is manifested in the mismatch of skills between the national workforce and emerging growth industries in the Kingdom. Without having the right policies in place, mismatch and the underutilisation of skills are likely to get worse in a context where the structure of employment is changing rapidly due to technological change and the increased interconnectedness of economies.

While the lack of a skilled labour supply is exaggerated by the safety net of social protections provided by the Saudi government to its citizens, and overemployment in the public sector, there too is a structural demand-side issue due to the overcompensation of the national skills shortage by the importation of skilled foreign workers. The introduction of a focused lifelong learning agenda could provide an opportunity to increase labour market liquidity, through upskilling the national workforce, particularly in preparation for the future of work, though

accountability must be taken as a priority for the underlying macroeconomic obstacles which dictate attitudes and behaviors towards educational choices. It is also essential to improve the image and attractiveness of technical and vocational education and training, which is in Saudi Arabia, as in many other countries, perceived as the least attractive education and training route42.

There is merit in recommendations put forward by World Bank regarding the crucial binding constraints of distortive hydro-carbon wealth distribution amongst the Saudi population, and the admittance and management of underpaid foreign labour, which can be focused in the context of supporting a lifelong learning agenda in the Kingdom, to target a reduction in the distance of Saudi nationals to the labour force.

One interesting recommendation put forward by World Bank to target the increased matching of young Saudi nationals with market relevant skills, is to consider the introduction of a co-financing model, restructuring existing education subsidies to include a contribution from students or their families, in an effort to increase the consciousness of tertiary educational choices. This would require thorough impact analysis and factors such as student finance (loans, bursaries, grants) and income and wealth testing would need to be considered, which raises challenges around accuracy and reliability of data collection and validation. World Bank does also acknowledge that the implementation of such a strategy, which would constitute a dramatic overhaul of current public financing policy, would have limited or no impact unless combined with a robust, holistic set of innovative policy proposals which wholesome tackle the many contributors to labour market inequity in Saudi Arabia.

In the context of lifelong learning, this paper has identified five specific policy recommendations to be implemented in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, these are detailed below:


Following the lead of many countries and international institutions around the world, a national Lifelong Learning Authority would enable a focused, joined-up policy response for Saudi Arabia to implement active labour market policies and strengthen the necessary social protection measures that improve access to lifelong learning for all, including disadvantaged groups. A joined-up policy response to lifelong learning would support the transitional management of workers displaced through changing patterns of work and enable enterprises to adjust to change, whilst mitigating against high social costs.

The Lifelong Learning Authority should be positioned independent of MoE but should include representation from MoE, in addition to stakeholders from across the lifelong learning value chain, including ministerial departments, schools, vocational institutions, universities, private sector entities (including service providers, training providers and employers) and new skills councils from industry as per their development under Vision 2030.

and increased skilled labour utilisation, would necessitate rigorous evaluation and solutioning which may justify such profound policy shifts in the future.

A further vfor MoE and MoF may be the redirection of some of the public education budget to provide increased financial incentives which encourage participation in demand-sector training and vocational routeways, for example for the priority growth sectors under The National Industrial Development and Logistics Vision Realization Program (Industries, Mining, Energy, Logistics).

This model can also be benchmarked against the UK, which in response to a national shortage of teachers in critical subjects in the national curriculum (such as mathematics, computing and physics), introduced a tax-free scholarship and bursary programme, providing up to GBP 28,000 (SAR 135,000) for new teachers to train in these fields.

5. TVTC to develop a national, relevant, engaging campaign exploring behavioural and social marketing interventions to increase the attractiveness of Technical and Vocational Educational Training and high skilled manual job selection.

There is a need to reaffirm the pivotal role of TVET in solving the Saudi labour market skills enigma. Alongside active policy making, the possible restructuring of educational financing and joining up of key stakeholders along the lifelong learning value chain, a national campaign should be introduced as a low-cost supplementary measure to raise the profile,

The targets set under Bulgaria’s lifelong learning strategy to 2020 are centered around its core approach:

• Implementing an educational approach that supports the development of all learners and contributes to the development of thinking, capable and proactive people capable of coping with change and insecurity;• Improving the quality of education and training.

• Providing an educational environment for equal access to lifelong learning, active social inclusion and active citizenship.

• Stimulating education and training tailored to the needs of the economy and changes in the labor market.

The implementation of Bulgaria’s National Lifelong Learning Strategy places a National Lifelong Learning Council as the Strategic Implementation Coordination Group which establishes annual plans for actions and stakeholder interactions, coordinating with multiple agencies through a National Lifelong Learning Platform to monitor performance and produce annual reports on progress against the agreed targets.

• Republic of Korea has established The Lifelong Education Act requiring the Ministry of Education to develop a comprehensive national lifelong education promotion plan every five years. The national plan aims to set up medium- and long-term policy objectives to promote lifelong learning in the Republic of Korea. The national plan prescribes the foundation of lifelong learning and dictates the allocation of financial and other resources. Policy outcomes are analysed and evaluated periodically against the objectives. The first National Lifelong Learning Promotion Plan was established by MoE in 2002, followed up by a second in 2006. The third national plan was announced in 2013, particularly highlighting the importance of lifelong learning for enhancing the quality of life for Koreans and supporting Korea’s

forms of poverty, fighting inequalities, protecting the planet and ensuring prosperity for all, as part of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development. As part of this agenda, 17 Sustainable Development Goals were agreed in 2016, with specific targets to be implemented ahead of 2030. Governments, businesses and civil society together with the United Nations have begun to mobilize efforts to achieve these objectives, including Sustainable Development Goal number 4, which focuses on Quality Education, ensuring inclusive and equitable quality education and promotes lifelong learning opportunities for all37.

Figure 1 – The United Nations Sustainable Development Goals 2030

• UNESCO has seven education institutes focused on education improvement, including an Institute for Lifelong Learning (UIL). It supports member states in the field of lifelong learning with a focus on adult and continuing education, literacy and non-formal basic education. It focuses specifically on furthering educational equity for disadvantaged groups and in countries affected by poverty and conflict. The UIL has one of the largest libraries in the world within its specialised field and hosts the world’s longest-running journal of comparative education and lifelong learning.

• European Union (EU): The Education, Audiovisual and Culture Executive Agency (EACEA) is an agency of the EU located in Brussels, Belgium. It manages parts of the EU’s

programmes in education, culture, and audiovisual fields. EACEA have initiated an annual action plan to deliver the EU’s Lifelong Learning Strategy which sets firm measures to increase adult involvement in learning to 5% by 2020, as well as targeting wider coverage, for example to include a focus on disadvantaged groups38.

The EU also co-funds ‘The Lifelong Learning Platform’ through its Erasmus+ programme which comprises 42 European organisations active in the field of education, training and youth, representing a network of over 50,000 educational institutions and associations covering all sectors of formal, non-formal and informal learning to target equity, social cohesion and active citizenship within the context of lifelong learning39.

• Bulgaria set a national Lifelong Learning Strategy in 2014 in response to specific challenges within their economy, defining a strategic framework of education and training policy aimed specifically at achieving the European goal of clever, sustainable and comprehensive growth. The Bulgarian strategy, which covers all participants in the learning process from cradle to grave, addresses pre-primary education and training, general school education, vocational education and training, higher education, continuing adult education, in addition to validating non-formal learning outcomes and self-study.

Bulgaria’s lifelong learning strategy is to be measured around specific targets, including, to increase the share of children covered by pre-school education to 90% by 2020 (from 87.8% in 2012), increase the participation of people aged 25-64 in education and training to 5% in 2020 (from 1.5% in 2012) and to increase the employment rates of the population aged 20-64 from 63% in 2012 to 76% in 2020.

entry into a creative economy. Rebublic of Korea take a multi-stakeholder approach to implementing the plan with representation from a diverse range of stakeholders from across their economy, including 10 government ministries.

• Singapore operates ‘Skills Future’, managed through its Future Economy Council (FEC), which is responsible for driving the growth and transformation of Singapore’s economy for the future. Chaired by Singapore’s Minister of Finance, the Council comprises members from government, industry, unions, and educational and training institutions and is a national movement to provide Singaporeans with opportunities to develop their skills, passions and contributions for an advanced economy and inclusive society. A wide variety of resources is available across the lifelong learning lifecycle, though is predominately targeted at students, employees and training providers, to support individuals striving for excellence, to develop skills mastery through enhanced knowledge, application and experience.

Skills Future Singapore opened a Lifelong Learning Institute in 2013 as a Continuing Education and Training Campus (CET), serving as a gateway for in-demand skills training and professional upgrading programs. The Institute supports:

• The workforce in their progression and capability development needs.

• Employers to address their manpower needs.

• CET providers to deliver best-in-class training programmes.

• Norway’s Department of Education and Lifelong Learning (IPL) was established in 2016, merging the former Department of Education, Department of Adult Learning and Counselling and Norwegian Centre for Child Research and

Educational Development. IPL provides a knowledge environment for research, education and communication in social sciences under the Norwegian University of Science and Technology, contributing research-based knowledge on childhood and adolescence, school, education and working life from the perspective of lifelong learning.

• United Kingdom (UK)’s Government’s Office for Science launched a foresight project in 2018 concerning The Future of Skills and Lifelong Learning. The project considers how investment in skills and lifelong learning can have a positive impact on productivity and the UK economy40 and is aimed at assisting policy makers in identifying areas in which to consider new or enhanced interventions. The project was commissioned by the UK Government for diagnosis purposes and identified five important challenges to inform future policy development:

1. Poor literacy and numeracy rates among young adults and signs that the UK is falling behind international competitors.

2. The belief of employers that new labour market entrants and not properly prepared for the workplace.

3. The UK has a relatively large mismatch between labour supply and skills demand;

4. Many places and sectors in the UK are in “low skilled equilibrium” (the availability of low skilled jobs matches the supply of low skilled workers).

5. Participation in formal learning declines with age, socio-economics and skill level.

The recent emphasis of lifelong learning policy in the UK has shifted its focus from skills development in relation to upskilling to the importance of reskilling, developing new skills and updating existing ones, with the increasing

acknowledgement of the requirements brought about by the changing patterns of work. Individuals are being encouraged to engage with formal education and training throughout their working lives to ‘catch up on learning’ and raise basic skills proficiency to respond to evolving circumstances, meet new people and cope with change and transitions throughout their lives.

7

The Opportunity forLifelong Learning

Sources: 40https://www.gov.uk/government/collections/future-of-skills-and-lifelong-learning






























8

Recommendations

41World Bank: From innovative Labor Market Analyses to Innovative Policy Proposals: A Policy Report

42http://www.unesco.org/new/fileadmin/MULTIMEDIA/HQ/ED/ED_new/pdf/WEF_report_E.pdfSources:






























8http://uis.unesco.org/country/SA#slideoutmenu 9https://www.oecd-ilibrary.org/docserver/eag-201814-en.pdf?expires=1570004804&id=id&accname=guest&checksum=15747C8C217E4EAB5C4368C80C1B1F8710https://nces.ed.gov/surveys/pirls/pirls2016/tables/pirls2016_table01.asp11http://www.timss-sa.org.za/download/TIMSS-2015-Grade-5-National-Report.pdf12https://www.weforum.org/agenda/201709//countries-with-best-education-systems/

9

attractiveness and social perception of TVET as a routeway into high-skilled, in-demand industries. The recommended national Lifelong Learning Authority should oversee the implementation of this campaign, with their own targets to increase the uptake of TVET in the Kingdom.

This paper has critically examined the current lifelong learning landscape in Saudi Arabia, identifying a deficit between educational partici-pation and attainment across the learning lifecy-cle in the Kingdom, relative to the performance of countries across the OECD. The Kingdom of Saudi Arabia faces a significant challenge with low levels of participation in Early Childhood Education and Care, poor performance in international standardised educational rankings such as PIRLS and TIMSS and high levels of adults who have not been educated beyond primary level.

Saudi Arabia ranks more positively in terms of the rate of participation in compulsory primary and secondary education, with enrolment in line with the average across the OECD. There is also a higher rate of enrolment in tertiary educa-tion programmes in the Kingdom than the average across the OECD. There is however a mismatch between the tertiary educational outcomes of Saudi nationals and the skills demand of the Saudi labour market; this is mani-fested through the poor perception and desirability of high-skilled manual employment and the low uptake of technical and vocational training in the Kingdom.

The skills challenge facing the Saudi labour market is acknowledged in government, with specific targets to improve skills proficiency and matching under the Saudi Vision 2030, particu-larly in the wake of drastic industrial and new sector developments brought about by the future of work. Many initiatives have been introduced with the ambition of upskilling and

reskilling the Saudi labour force, particularly focused on digital learning and technical and vocational training, yet these have so far failed to yield positive labour market outcomes.

One reason for this, as the paper identifies is due to the continued reliance on foreign work-ers in the Kingdom and the lack of existing policy-levers to bridge the gap between learn-ing outcomes and employment.

There is a need for a joined-up policy response to lifelong learning in the Kingdom, through establishing a single Authority, with account-ability for the strategic objectives of govern-ment and fully funded to effectively deliver against the skills agenda which can enable the future prosperity of the Kingdom.

Conclusion

attractiveness and social perception of TVET as a routeway into high-skilled, in-demand industries. The recommended national Lifelong Learning Authority should oversee the implementation of this campaign, with their own targets to increase the uptake of TVET in the Kingdom.

This paper has critically examined the current lifelong learning landscape in Saudi Arabia, identifying a deficit between educational partici-pation and attainment across the learning lifecy-cle in the Kingdom, relative to the performance of countries across the OECD. The Kingdom of Saudi Arabia faces a significant challenge with low levels of participation in Early Childhood Education and Care, poor performance in international standardised educational rankings such as PIRLS and TIMSS and high levels of adults who have not been educated beyond primary level.

Saudi Arabia ranks more positively in terms of the rate of participation in compulsory primary and secondary education, with enrolment in line with the average across the OECD. There is also a higher rate of enrolment in tertiary educa-tion programmes in the Kingdom than the average across the OECD. There is however a mismatch between the tertiary educational outcomes of Saudi nationals and the skills demand of the Saudi labour market; this is mani-fested through the poor perception and desirability of high-skilled manual employment and the low uptake of technical and vocational training in the Kingdom.

The skills challenge facing the Saudi labour market is acknowledged in government, with specific targets to improve skills proficiency and matching under the Saudi Vision 2030, particu-larly in the wake of drastic industrial and new sector developments brought about by the future of work. Many initiatives have been introduced with the ambition of upskilling and

reskilling the Saudi labour force, particularly focused on digital learning and technical and vocational training, yet these have so far failed to yield positive labour market outcomes.

One reason for this, as the paper identifies is due to the continued reliance on foreign work-ers in the Kingdom and the lack of existing policy-levers to bridge the gap between learn-ing outcomes and employment.

There is a need for a joined-up policy response to lifelong learning in the Kingdom, through establishing a single Authority, with account-ability for the strategic objectives of govern-ment and fully funded to effectively deliver against the skills agenda which can enable the future prosperity of the Kingdom.

13https://www.oecd-ilibrary.org/docserver/eag-201814--en.pdf?expires=1570004804&id=id&accname=guest&checksum=15747C8C217E4EAB5C4368C80C1B1F87

14https://www.weforum.org/agenda/201709//countries-with-best-education-systems/

F e b r u a r y ٢٠١٧

INSIGHT PAPERAn Insight into Lifelong Learning for Saudi Arabia

This paper was produced by the Takamol Advisory Unit:

Aisha Izzet, Directoremail - [email protected]

Gerry Croall, Senior Advisor, Policy & Impact email – [email protected]

Ruba AlYousefi, Policy & Impact Manager email – [email protected]

Yara Dizar, Policy & Impact Manager email – [email protected]

Ed Henty, Senior Specialist, Policy & Impact email – [email protected]

Ghadah Alrasheed, Policy & Impact Analyst email – [email protected]

Razan AlHarthi, Policy & Impact Analyst email – [email protected]

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