Education Sector

Education sector is regarded as one of the luckiest sectors, as it got a great interest from the leaders and governments of the GCC countries because of its importance in modernizing and speeding the development. The development in the GCC countries has begun with the start of the oil boom rather than the emergence of other facts as the trend of the GCC countries to adopt the free market strategies and diversified economy as well as encouraging competition. This gave great importance to the role of educational sector with the emergence of the need to new scientific specializations and creating employment opportunities in private sector. The volume of the investments in the GCC countries is estimated of 56$ billion, while the projects under execution reached 43% billion. Higher education is regarded as a mirror that reflexes the development of the educational sector as a whole in the GCC countries. According to the statistics of the General Secretariat of the GCC, the number of the governmental and private universities in the UAE in the academic year 2004 is about 8 universities compared to 6 in the year 1999, Bahrain 10 universities in 2004, compared to 2 universities in 1999, Saudi Arabia 11 universities compared to 8 universities, Qatar 5 universities compared to one university. The GCC countries show tendency towards the specialization of the educational sector as some countries have recorded, particularly UAE, qualitative initiatives to attract branches of some international universities. According to published statistics, the total number of male and female students in university in Oman about 20893 students in the academic year 2003-2004 compared to 7796 in 1995-1996, the number of students in Kuwait has reached 16562 compared to 20417, Saudi Arabia 571813 compared to 209796, as the biggest number in the GCC, while Bahrain reached 26140 compared to 6998 in the academic year 1995-1996 .