Dr. Fawziya Al-Bakr
NEWSPAPERS have been competing with one another in publishing news of our universities pointing out that they were seeking non-Saudi teaching staff.
According to one report, the number of academic visas issued for foreign teaching staff increased 400 percent in 2016 to reach 1,908 against 470 visas in the previous year.
Universities have attributed the increase to non-availability of qualified Saudi teachers to fill their vacancies. The news reports exposed “the anti-national attitude” of universities, which employed foreigners while many jobless Saudis were seeking employment.
The press reports argued that Saudi universities should have employed graduates from the Kingdom’s colleges, especially Shariah graduates who find difficulty to get jobs.
Despite efforts by the former ministry of higher education, which has been merged in the Education Ministry, since 2013 to reduce recruitment of foreign professors in Shariah and Arabic language, some new universities in the remote regions have started recruiting a large number of foreign teachers.
Do our newspapers consider this as anti-national act? In this respect I would like to make some clarifications to look at things in the right perspective.
First, the decision taken by the higher education ministry to end contracts with Arab universities for providing Shariah and Arabic language professors was wrong. We know that the universities in the Arab Maghreb region have excellent professors in the two subjects. It was better to identify some of the best Arab universities to supply highly qualified professors to improve the quality of courses in the two subjects.
Second, why do some Saudi universities recruit non-Saudi professors? As mentioned in the newspaper reports, they had published the vacancies but did not turn up anybody to fill them. This is strange as hundreds of students have passed out from our universities after obtaining master and doctoral degrees.
It is quite natural that teaching jobs at any university require long experience in teaching, research and publication in order to meet academic standards. For higher education courses universities need highly qualified teachers with the rank of professor or associate professor. We cannot expect such qualification in graduates of local universities and they, therefore, look for highly qualified foreign professors.
If you ask me whether I am with the appointment of local graduates to fill vacant positions of university professors I would reply in the negative.
University education in the whole world nosedived when they decided to appoint only local academics who will be not qualified in terms of understanding cultural diversity and proficiency in English language, which is essential for a professor to keep himself abreast with latest developments in his field of specialization.
We know that the work of a university professor is not similar to the one of a cleric or any government job, which can be done by any university graduate, as believed by the advocates of nationalizing university professors. If this argument was true, MIT and Harvard in the US and McGill University in Canada would have appointed only local professors.
Instead, they appointed highly qualified and talented foreign professors and scientists, spending millions of dollars, without considering their nationality. As a result of this approach, these universities were able to achieve excellence. In fact they had no nationalistic bias in the selection of professors.
University education demands highly talented and experienced professors, who should have spent years in teaching, research and publication. The prime concern was not their nationality but their capacity to produce highly knowledgeable students. There is no retirement age for professors in world famous universities.
I would like to request our newspapers not to question the patriotism of Saudi universities when they appoint foreign professors. Our universities seek highly qualified professors to produce distinguished students who can make remarkable contributions to their country’s progress and prosperity.
