Kuwait

The security of Kuwait in the twenty-first century has social dimensions of which education and other social services are important components. Oil revenues have enabled GCC states such as Kuwait to provide a range of social services, but with the accelerated development and modernization have come new challenges and alterations to longstanding sociocultural and religious traditions. Tangible declines in the level of welfare services for people who have come to hold high expectations from their government could be disastrous for the social stability of Gulf states. A generous welfare system may keep citizens happy and comfortable, but it can also reinforce negative attitudes toward work. Educating citizens with regard to choices, options, and challenges is needed, particularly with regard to the needed alignment of the educational and training programs with labor market needs. Some Arab Gulf states, Kuwait and Bahrain for example, have taken steps to involve citizens in the political decision-making processes, and this will be a stimulus to hopefully even greater involvement in areas such as education.

Although the expatriate dominated workforce seems likely to continue in the near future, education can help resolve some of the frictions resulting from perceived social and cultural changes. Kuwait has had the good fortune to benefit from rapid development due to oil revenues, and the financial resources exist to meet the educational challenges of the day with a technologically advanced educational infrastructure, with qualified teaching professionals, and with an increasingly involved citizenry.

Training and educational quality assurance, integration of training and educational systems with labor market needs, a reduction in the bureaucracy of educational management, curriculum reform, review of testing procedures, and coordination between schools and employers are suggested reforms that may help Kuwaiti and other Arab Gulf nationals to free themselves from the dangerous dependence on foreign labor and the dangerous disillusionment with the comfort level provided by a benevolent state. There are some positive signs that Kuwait may be more willing than other GCC states to take some of the necessary—yet difficult and unpopular—moves needed to ensure a greater degree of social stability. Although some of the excellent traditional qualities of the Gulf Arabs seem to have been assimilated by modernization, a degree of Westernization, and a high standard of living in the age of oil super affluence, the Iraqi invasion and occupation of Kuwait testify to a resolve and spirit of resistance in the face of adversity that bodes well for Kuwait's ability to grapple with social challenges of the future.