Barriers to Accountability Implementation in the Education Directorates in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia

Abstract

The study aimed to identify the barriers to accountability implementation in the education directorates and to know the suggestions for applying accountability in the education directorates in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia from the study members’ point of view. For the purpose of achieving the objectives and procedures of the study, the descriptive survey approach was used. The study included all the male and female assistants of the education directors of the boys/girls education affairs, whose number is (90), and all the assistants of the education directors of school affairs whose number is (45). Therefore, the total number of assistants is (135). The study also included all directors and heads of departments and sections belonging directly to the education directors in the regions and provinces, whose number is (540). Hence, the total of the study population is (675). The researcher depended on the questionnaire for data collection, and the most prominent results were:

-    There is a number of barriers which may face the implementation of accountability in the education directorates where the majority of the study members’ agreed that the most important of these barriers are: lack of technically qualified human cadres who are needed for the implementation of accountability, rarity of training programs that directed to the implementation of accountability in work, limited availability of appropriate measures to measure performance, and the low level of awareness role of the media of accountability importance.

-    The majority of the study members’ agree that there is a number of suggestions which can contribute to the accountability implementation in the education directorates, and they came according to the following grading: using modern technologies to record and classify data and to extract results, specifying work objectives accurately, awareness of the administrative system in the educational directorates by the importance of accountability in work, and spreading the accountability culture and its role in the improvement of educational work.

Keywords: Administrative accountability – Barriers of accountability implementation – Accountability in the education directorates in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia.