International Journal of

ADVANCED AND APPLIED SCIENCES

EISSN: 2313-3724, Print ISSN: 2313-626X

Frequency: 12
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 Volume 9, Issue 2 (February 2022), Pages: 173-183

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 Original Research Paper

 Title: Comparing university education in open and focused majors: A look to the future

 Author(s): Abdullah Al-Otaibi 1, *, Abdul Majid Abdul Ghani 2

 Affiliation(s):

 1College of Business Administration, Northern Border University, Arar, Saudi Arabia
 2Independent Researcher and Human Development Consultant, Beirut, Lebanon

  Full Text - PDF          XML

 * Corresponding Author. 

  Corresponding author's ORCID profile: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-7868-0371

 Digital Object Identifier: 

 https://doi.org/10.21833/ijaas.2022.02.020

 Abstract:

This study aims to redirect the human resources of university graduates towards the actual needs required of society. The huge increase in the number of graduates in the Arab world is not matched by economic growth and therefore organized labor markets that can harness the skills of graduates and invest in developing the new and future required skills to meet the challenges of the labor market. This study presents a broad comparison between the narrow and general concepts adopted in education. The study aims to provide an analysis of what should be the future direction of higher education in countries and how this can be applied to education systems in Arab countries such as Saudi Arabia. Finally, it makes evidence-based recommendations to support such strategic choices, and the study concludes that a broad system that does not integrate with market needs and operates away from serious partnership with stakeholders and employer groups will certainly fail to meet national needs and national aspirations, as the data analysis revealed. University students are gathering in majors to saturate the labor market with graduates with low potential to compete in the job market, and this has led to the recommendation to take serious steps that would stimulate efficiency and responsiveness to the system. New programs and curricula that reflect market demand Shifting resources towards such a system will benefit universities as they can focus on meeting skills needs and employers who can hire skilled employees through active participation in building skill sets. 

 © 2022 The Authors. Published by IASE.

 This is an open access article under the CC BY-NC-ND license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/).

 Keywords: Narrow specialization, Broad specialization, 21st-century skills, Higher education trends, Saudi tertiary education

 Article History: Received 4 September 2021, Received in revised form 8 December 2021, Accepted 26 December 2021

 Acknowledgment 

The authors gratefully acknowledge the approval and the support of this research study by grant no. 1115-EAR-2019-1-10 from the Deanship of Scientific Research at Northern Border University, Arar, KSA.

 Compliance with ethical standards

 Conflict of interest: The author(s) declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

 Citation:

 Al-Otaibi A and Ghani AMA (2022). Comparing university education in open and focused majors: A look to the future. International Journal of Advanced and Applied Sciences, 9(2): 173-183

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