Failure to encourage academic research hinders progress

The column was originally published in Arab news
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AFTER coming home after five years in England as a postgraduate student, I have come to realize how much I have grown personally and professionally. The King Abdullah Student Scholarship Program made it possible for me and the more than 165,000 other Saudis to forge a new life that guarantees many rewards.
As unusual as it may seem for Westerners, living independently in England has taught me to pay bills, like the UK’s mysterious television license (yes, you pay a tax to own and watch television in your home) and British Gas, with its multilayered and virtually nonsensical way it calculates how much gas you use during the month. I left the UK paying hundreds of pounds to close the account, although I heated only one room and cooked on an electric stove.

Perhaps most important, the time spent in the West has taught me to manage my time and conduct intense research, which required me to spend all-night sessions in the library, and then face the unappealing walk home in freezing weather. My fellow Saudi students worked just as hard. Other foreign students were not as lucky as Saudis. They not only struggled to maintain their studies, but they often took part-time jobs in restaurants and cafes to pay for their tuition.
At the end of the day I hope to become a valuable resource for my country. The government spent a lot of money on me to make my dream come true and it is my obligation to repay the government.
I marveled at the discipline I witnesses among my fellow students in an academic environment. But I am equally disturbed about many returning Saudis who have returned to old habits. Once graduates are free of the constraints imposed on them in academia, issues of etiquette, time management and working in a highly disciplined manner seemed to have disappeared. When a student sweats blood and tears to write an 80,000-word thesis, and then pass his defense session for his postgraduate degree, why resume the old habits of passing the time in a job before going home?
I don’t claim to have the answer why Saudis forgot about a society once steeped in science or why even among some young graduates science is no longer a priority to pursue.
Speaking to a colleague with a postgraduate degree recently, I suggested we work together on a joint paper in the field we shared. She looked at me as if I was crazy, noting that she had worked hard for her degree and now she only wanted to relax.
I often receive e-mails from US and European academics asking me to participate in projects, conferences or join them in co-writing papers. I receive nothing like that from Saudi academics. In Saudi Arabia, students — men and women alike — have little mobility in research or access to libraries to continue their work after receiving their degrees.
There is little value placed on research. It’s been my experience that Saudi universities do not provide time for their academic staff to pursue research in their fields that leads to publishing important papers.
Most western universities require that faculty members spend up to 70 percent of their time in research and 30 percent teaching. Saudi universities have not embraced the concept that professional research guarantees that your colleagues and students can count on you to provide the required information and learning tools to help students advance. Research is a contribution to the humanity in general and science in particular. Eastern Asian countries have developed extensive programs to guarantee time for research, to focus on education and knowledge, and to transform their countries from consumerist economies to knowledge-producing economies.
There is immense social pressure to conform to Saudi society once we are back inside the Kingdom. And as a result we have yet to change the balance of knowledge from being a consuming society to a knowledge-producing society.
We lag behind other countries as we continue to rely on oil and nonoil exports as sources of revenue without considering the advantages of what impact a knowledge-producing economy will have on future generations of Saudis.
Although one-quarter of the Kingdom’s budget is allocated for education we have no strategic plans for education. We have vague ideas, but we are unsure where we want to go. Teachers, for example, don’t discuss the goals of their courses before teaching their subjects.
King Abdullah had a vision of education when he implemented the scholarship program. The program can help Saudi Arabia re-balance the scale of international power and allow Saudis to get on the same footing as knowledge-producing countries.
It’s one thing to send students abroad for a first-class education and have them return with a degree in hand. It’s quite another to do something with that degree and to foster knowledge to the new generation and to continue learning ourselves.
However, the tools for continuing education for academics are by and large missing from our teaching arsenal. The culture to teach what we have learned abroad, and then apply that knowledge to better our economy and education system, is missing.
King Abdullah has taken a courageous step in introducing the scholarship program that sends students to five continents. It is now up to Saudi universities, the Ministry of Education and the Ministry of Higher Education to build on our newly acquired knowledge by creating libraries, research centers and opening facilities for visiting postgraduates and independent researchers.

Women need to know about their rights

An incident recently at a Riyadh mall and posted on YouTube revealed a startling altercation between a young Saudi woman and the Haia over an all too common theme in our country: Men telling women what is and isn't appropriate to wear.

In this case, the Commission for the Promotion of Virtue and Prevention of Vice (Haia) attempted to eject a young Saudi woman from the mall because they deemed her nail polish — and as the confrontation continued, her lipstick — inappropriate and provocative. As soon as commission members approached the woman, she began recording the incident on her telephone and she challenged the men to explain their reasoning for throwing her out of the mall.
YouTube is full of interesting and entertaining confrontations between members of the public and the Haia, especially when women are involved. What makes this incident different is the young woman's knowledge of her rights and what the Haia is permitted to do and what not to do.
She knew, for example, of the new edict that prohibits commission members from chasing and harassing people going about their business.
She also was aware that the appropriateness of her nail polish was in the eye of the beholder. A minor infraction over the color of one's nail polish hardly requires being thrown out of a public mall.
Judging from the video, the Haia was clearly flummoxed over the aggressive response from the woman. At one point when a commission member pointed out that the woman's lipstick was also inappropriate, the woman replied, "Why are you looking at my mouth?"
I won't judge the Haia's intentions. And it's not for me to say whether the woman's nail polish or her behavior deserved special attention.
The larger picture is this young lady knew her rights and exercised them to her advantage. She summoned the police to complain she was harassed and chased for what she says was no reason and she documented the exchange. She also reminded commission members that actions were contrary to pronouncements of their ultimate boss Sheikh Abdullatif Al-Asheikh. It is a rare thing in Saudi Arabia when individuals have a clear understanding of what rights they possess and how to protect themselves.
Saudi women are at an extreme disadvantage. There are no women's advocacy groups or even social clubs. There are no institutions at the ministry or municipal level that provide resources for women to understand their rights. We are not provided adequate information on our rights in domestic courts pertaining to divorce and child custody, nor do most women have a full understanding of their rights to inheritance.
Without this knowledge we are at the mercy of individuals who interpret laws as they see fit.
Did the young woman break a law? It seems no. Did she violate the Saudi norms of modesty?
Who is to say? The lines of modesty move from day to day and from region to region. What is considered inappropriate dress in Riyadh is perfectly acceptable in Jeddah. So how a woman from Jeddah is to behave when she visits a mall in Riyadh?
Consistent application of the law — indeed, if there is one to govern how women should dress — is the foundation of a civilized society. And knowledge of those laws by both the Saudi population and legal authorities allow us to function in society without upsetting the customs and traditions of our country. In the case of the woman in the mall, I venture that based on the video she had a better understanding of her rights than the Haia.
I am not suggesting that every woman harangue the Haia over the slightest confrontation, but as a form of self-protection women should be aware of their rights and state those rights to legal authorities while insisting a response.
This can only be accomplished through a government-sponsored awareness program. We have similar breast cancer and obesity awareness programs.
A similar effort to publicize women's rights that target women and training programs for legal authorities will go a long way toward minimizing regretful confrontations such as the one in Riyadh.
Following the mall incident, an online Saudi news organization reported the Haia had indicated that it might prosecute the young woman for recording and disseminating the video of the commission members performing its duties, although there are dozens of YouTube videos of the Haia doing its job without resulting in the arrest of the videographers. The Haia also identified the woman through her mobile phone number when she called the police.
It is disturbing the woman may have won a Pyrrhic victory: Successfully arguing the Haia violated her rights, but facing jail time for documenting that victory.

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* The article originally appeared in the Saudi Arab news

* The picture is taken from http://www.worldnewstribune.com