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Qatar Qatar -- Education and Welfare
Before oil was discovered, there was no formal
education
system in Qatar. Instead, some children in villages and
towns
memorized passages from the Quran and learned to read and
write
in a kuttab, an informal class taught in mosques or
homes
by literate men and women knowledgeable about Islam. Based
on the
custom of keeping women in a milieu shut off from the
political,
social, and economic opportunities afforded men, the
development
of education in Qatar focused mainly on the male
population. From
1918 to 1938, for example, an Islamic school for adult
males was
run by Muhammad Abd al Aziz al Mana, an eminent scholar
who had
studied under Muhammad Abduh of Egypt and Al Alusi of
Baghdad.
According to a 1970 study, only 9 percent of the
population born
between 1895 and 1910 were literate, as were 15 percent of
those
born between 1910 and 1920 and 14 percent of those born
between
1920 and 1930.
In 1949 Shaykh Hamad ibn Abd Allah opened a somewhat
more
modern school. The school, the Islah al Muhammadiyyah, had
one
teacher and fifty boys. In 1951 the school received
funding from
the ruling family, and the number of students and teachers
increased. Subjects included Islamic religion and history,
Arabic, arithmetic, geography, and English. By 1954 there
were
four such schools, with a total of 560 male students and
twentysix teachers. The first girls' school funded by oil money
was a
small kuttab that had been run by Amina Mahmud
since 1938.
After it was reorganized in 1956 as the first public
school for
girls in Qatar, four teachers taught 122 students the
Quran,
Arabic, arithmetic, ethics, and health. In the same year,
the
Department of Education was established. The budget for
education
increased from QR1 million (for value of the
Qatari riyal--see Glossary)
in 1955 to QR25 million in 1960. Not only was
all
public schooling free, but between 1956 and 1962 students
received a monthly stipend. Despite inequality during the
1950s
between the number of boys and the number of girls
attending
school, attendance was almost equal by gender in the late
1970s,
with girls outperforming boys academically.
In the early 1990s, the education system consisted of
six
years of primary school, three years of intermediate
school, and
three years of secondary school (see
table 19, Appendix).
The
secondary education program includes schools specializing
in
religion, commerce, and technical studies in which only
males are
allowed. Females, however, might attend teacher-training
institutions. Instruction throughout the system is in
Arabic, but
English is introduced in the last two years of primary
school,
and there are special language-training programs for
government
personnel. Private facilities are available for
kindergarten
instruction. In addition, many foreign communities have
established schools for their children; the largest are
the
schools for the Indian community. Although the government
offers
assistance to private schools, they are funded mainly
through
tuition and private sources.
In the 1975-76 academic year, 21,402 children attended
primary school; by the 1985-86 academic year, that number
had
risen to 31,844. Students continue to be segregated by
gender. In
1986 approximately 5.6 percent of the gross national
product
(GNP--see Glossary)
went toward public education. The
state in
the 1990s continued to cover education costs, including
school
supplies, clothing, meals, and transportation to and from
school.
In the 1988-89 academic year, there were 48,097
students in
ninety-seven primary schools taught by 2,589 teachers and
22,178
secondary students in seventy-eight schools taught by
2,115
teachers. At the three vocational schools, there were 924
students and 104 teachers. In the 1989-90 academic year,
there
were 5,637 students at the University of Qatar, which had
504
instructors, mostly Egyptians and non-Qatari Arabs.
The first institutions of higher education in Qatar
were
separate teacher-training colleges for men and women that
opened
in 1973. Before that, those wishing to pursue higher
degrees
either studied abroad (mainly in Egypt and Lebanon) or
took
correspondence courses. A decree establishing the
University of
Qatar was passed, and in 1977 faculties of humanities,
social
studies, Islamic studies, and science joined the education
faculty of the teacher-training colleges. In the 1985-86
academic
year, about 1,000 Qataris received government scholarships
to
pursue higher education abroad, mostly in other Arab
countries
and in the United States, Britain, and France.
Data as of January 1993
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