Okaz newspaper MOST colleges of education were established in 1993 and many seem to have been launched with one fundamental goal: to replace non-Saudi female teachers with Saudi ones. One of the colleges wrote in its first mission statement it “seeks to meet the educational needs of local communities in terms of preparing highly-qualified female teachers to teach at elementary, intermediate and secondary schools.” The plan focused on replacing non-Saudi female teachers – the majority at the time – with Saudi ones as quickly as possible. College students studied for two years, got their teaching diplomas and were told that they were qualified to teach. However, the Ministry of Education realized that its plan had the potential to cause much harm to future generations. To correct their oversight, they then decided to shift the responsibility of running these colleges to the Ministry of Higher Education in 1995. Moreover they launched Teachers' Education Colleges and increased the academic programs to four years. Thus, students earned BA (Hons) degrees rather than diplomas. However, most of the women who graduated between 1995 and 2001 are now unemployed. The teaching jobs they were promised did not materialize. The question that poses itself is what did these female graduates do wrong? The Ministry of Education told them to get their qualifications from a College of Education if she wanted to get a teaching job. When they completed their studies, unfortunately the ministry did not keep its promise. __
