This study explores the extent to which five essential economic values related to the themes of production, savings, moderation in expenditure, labor, and economic development were included in the Saudi Arabian Educational Policy Document and their reflection in a high school vocational textbook. A systematic quantitative descriptive approach was used to analyze the contents of the two documents. Results showed that the Education Policy Document only included the production domain value. The vocational textbook did not significantly include all economic values, except the theme related to respecting and the value of time. This means that the two documents should be revised to include these important economic values, as they are important for students’ future.
Educators regarded school textbooks as the main source for students’ learning. In many countries including Saudi Arabia, text books play central roles in enriching students’ literacy. We need to analyze these textbooks to explore their ability to develop student literacy in essential life aspects including economy and economic values. Haralambos and Holborn [
Studies [
Wealth is not measured in terms of financial status, but in terms of a nation’s citizens being productive in labour and being capable of contributing toward life in society by being educating in economic literacy [
Content analysis was defined as “a research technique for the objective, systematic, and quantitative description of the manifest content of communications” [
Researchers offered many classifications of the economic values. For example, Abdullah [
Importance of teaching economic values is stressed by Abdulhamid (2007), who indicated that teaching economic values leads to positive impacts on the individual’s economic behavior. The more the economic values are entrenched in the individual’s mind, the more their economic behavior is in line with them. In addition, studying economic values will help individuals to deal well with everyday economic situations and face the difficulties of life, enhance time management, increase respect for beneficial work, have a sense of responsibility, have knowledge of saving and other economic values which are responsible for good money handling (which is an essential skill), and will help to avoid wasteful and irrational consumption.
The KSA government recognized the importance of planning solid education by issuing the Education Policy Document in KSA as an outline of the process of education. It was adopted by the Council of Ministers, Resolution No. 779, on December 17, 1969 (Education Policy in Saudi Arabia, 1995, p. 5). However, none of these studies have addressed the economic dimension of the Educational Policy Document in KSA. Therefore, this study attempts to fill this gap by examining economic values presented in this document in comparison to.
Al-dossari [
This study is the first educational study to target the economic values in two documents: the vocational school textbook and the Education Policy Document in KSA. Therefore, it may enrich the knowledge of education and information related to economic values. It may also enable other researchers to conduct similar studies in other countries or to conduct studies on other education policy aspects. In addition, knowing the economic values included in the two documents may help educational planners and policy makers in planning future curricula for general education. Finally, this study’s result and other research efforts may lead to the positive modification of the Educational Policy Document, which may lead to the improvement and renovation of the whole educational system in KSA.
Vocational textbooks are supposed to offers a fertile source for concepts and values that should be offered to students. At the same time, the Educational Policy Document is supposed to serve as a guide for enriching such textbooks with those concepts and values. This study investigates the extent to which the economic values are included in the vocational textbooks, as well as the Educational Policy Document in Saudi Arabia.
This study dealt with the inclusion of the economic values in the vocational textbook and the Education Policy Document in KSA. The values addressed in this study have not been previously studied. In short, this study attempts to discover the degree that economic values are included in the vocational textbook as well as the Education Policy Document in KSA.
The study’s main question was as follows:
To what extent are the economic values related to the themes of savings, moderation, work, production, and development are included in the vocational textbook, as compared to the Educational Policy Document in KSA?
This study used a descriptive analytical method through the content analysis of the two documents; the vocational textbook and the Saudi Arabian Education Policy Document in light of their inclusion of the economic values. The objective was to achieve a quantitative description of the content of the two educational documents in order to find their basic features and indicators that may help to provide answers to the question raised in the problem of the study.
The sample included the contents of the vocational textbook. Vocational textbooks are used in secondary schools. They are supposed to offer a fertile source for concepts and values that should be offered to students. The analyzed vocational textbook is required to be taught in the second year of the secondary school stage. It includes 138 pages and 15 lessons. All chapters and lessons were analyzed. . It is a compulsory textbook for all secondary school students, which deals with vocational topics aiming at preparing the student professionally for the labor market. It addresses many topics, most notably, professional ethics, types of occupations, applying for a job, writing a CV, and job search methods and other topics. The vocational textbook also contains a set of theoretical and practical activities related to the profession. The student cannot pass the classroom unless he or she passes all courses including this course, as this course is compulsory for all students.
For comparative purposes, the sample also included the KSA Education Policy Document. The Educational Policy Document is supposed to serve as a guide for enriching such textbooks with those concepts and values. This document includes 46 pages, 18 chapters, and 236 general rules. The document was reprinted without any amendments in its fourth edition (1416H–1995 AD). All content of the document were analyzed for the purpose of exploring the extent to which the essential economic values are included.
This study analyzed the two documents in light of their economic values. We conducted a content analysis on the 18 chapters of the Educational Policy Document and the 15 lessons from the vocational textbook. These units were selected according to the context of each of the documents to be analyzed and the nature of the economic values contained in these documents. For the vocational textbook, the unit of the analysis was the lessons, while the unit of the analysis for the educational policy document was the chapter.
Five economic values were chosen as the categories of analysis; savings, moderation in expenditure, labor, production, and economic development. Each value was represented in the analysis categories.
The study used a content analysis card, which was constructed with the aim of determining the economic values contained in the twodocuments after a careful review of the educational literature and studies related to the subject of this current study. Saving, moderation, work, production, and economic development were the themes of the content analysis card, each of these themsincludes a number of values. Thus, the card included 37 values distributed on five themes as seen in Table
Economic values and the number of values in each theme.
Theme | Number of values | |
---|---|---|
1 | Saving | 7 |
2 | Moderation | 6 |
3 | Work | 8 |
4 | Production | 6 |
5 | Economic development | 10 |
The themes and their categories are described as follows:
The first theme is saving, which is defined as providing part of an income, spending plans, diversifying sources of income, reducing waste, contribute to charity (Zakat), good use of resources, and awareness of the value of money. This theme included seven items.
The second theme is having moderation in spending and means to avoid wasteful behavior, scarcity and stinginess, and harmful consumer habits. It also means to have good management of spending, efficiency in spending, and the rationalization of consumption. This theme included six items.
The third theme is work, meaning to take responsibility, respect the value of time, have mastery in your work, respect for all professions, to be fair, to raise the level of work culture, to have continuous professional growth, and to fight unemployment. This theme included eight items.
The fourth theme is production, meaning the development of human resources in education, development of human resources in training, provision of specialized education, support for national products, building of productive citizens, and productive investments. This theme included six items.
The fifth theme is economic development which is defined as having equal educational opportunities, the development of higher education, the promotion of scientific research, linkage between the theoretical side of education to the practical side, combating corruption, linkage of the outputs of education to the labor market, the benefits of global expertise, the preservation of public property, and financing education. This theme included 10 items.
The analysis tool was initially given to a group of arbitrators specializing in education to ensure that the indicators and contents were closely associated with specific economic values. It also aimed at ensuring that the items to be analyzed and studied would measure what was intended. The tool was, then, adjusted in its final form according to the arbitrators’ notes and feedback.
To measure the stability of the tool, the reanalysis method of content analysis was used. The researcher analyzed the content of the study population twice, each separated by a period of one month. The value of the agreement for this study was 0.89. Studies indicated that if the stability factor was more than 0.80, the tool is reliable. Therefore, this value is reasonable, and as a result, the analysis instrument can be used for the analysis of similar documents.
We presented the results of the content analysis of the vocational textbook and the Education Policy Document in KSA in light of their inclusion of the economic values by presenting the results of each of the five themes as follows:
To identify the extent to which economic values related to savings are included in the two documents, the frequencies and percentages of the analysis categories (content of the values) were calculated as follows and are presented in Table
The descending order of the economic values related to savings contained in the provisions of the vocational book and the education policy document in Saudi Arabia.
Items | Policy document (18 chapters) | Vocational textbook (15 lessons) | |||||
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
% | Rank | % | Rank | ||||
1 | Contributing to charity: Zakat, charity | 1 | 5.6 | 1 | 1 | 6.7 | 1 |
2 | Awareness of the value of money | 1 | 5.6 | 1 | 1 | 6.7 | 1 |
3 | Diversification of income sources | 0 | 0 | 2 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
4 | Reduce wastage | 0 | 0 | 2 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
5 | Preserve part of the intake | 0 | 0 | 2 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
6 | Good use of resources | 0 | 0 | 2 | 0 | 0 | 2 |
7 | Spending planning | 0 | 0 | 2 | 0 | 0 | 2 |
Total | 0.29 | 1.6 | 0.29 | 1.9 |
It is clear from Table
However, the absence of the other five values in the educational content might be an indication of the lack of the policymakers’ interest in other aspects in the value of saving. The reduction of waste is a very important value and should be included in the two documents. The same can be said of the other values that were not included in any of the documents.
To identify the extent to which economic values related to moderation are included in the expenditure in the two documents, the frequencies and percentages of the analysis of categories (content of values) were calculated, which can be seen in Table
The descending order of the economic values related to the moderation in spending contained in the provisions of the Saudi Arabian vocational textbook (15 lessons) and the Educational Policy Document.
Items | Policy document (18) | Vocational textbook (15) | |||||
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
% | Rank | % | Rank | ||||
1 | Avoid wastefulness and wastefulness | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | ||
2 | Keep away from scarcity and stinginess | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | ||
3 | Good measure of spending | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | ||
4 | Avoid harmful consumer habits | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | ||
5 | Efficient spending | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | ||
6 | Decrease consumption | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | ||
Total | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
It is strange that the concept or values of moderation in spending is not included in the Educational Policy Document, although Islam considers moderation as a virtue and has been confirmed by the concepts of moderation in spending despite the fact that Islam instructs its followers to be moderate and balanced in all aspects of their life including the spending of money. In this aspect, Allah said in Al-Quran [
We can conclude that the six economic values and phrases that constitute the theme of moderation in spending were not found in the analyzed Education Policy Document or in the vocational textbook either explicitly or implicitly. This may mean that the values related to moderation in spending are not stressed in the Education Policy Document. Studies [
To identify this, the frequencies and percentages of the analysis for values related to this theme were calculated (see Table
The descending order of the economic values related to the work contained in the provisions of the Saudi Arabian vocational textbook (15 lessons) and the Educational Policy Document (18 parts).
Items | Policy document (18) | Vocational textbook (15) | |||||
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
% | Rank | % | Rank | ||||
1 | Continuous professional growth | 5 | 25.0 | 1 | 5 | 33.3 | 2 |
2 | Take work responsibility | 4 | 22.2 | 2 | 6 | 40.0 | 1 |
3 | Respect the value of time | 4 | 22.2 | 2 | 2 | 13.3 | 5 |
4 | Work mastery | 2 | 11.1 | 3 | 5 | 20.0 | 4 |
5 | Respect for all professions | 2 | 11.1 | 3 | 7 | 20.0 | 4 |
6 | Combating unemployment | 2 | 22.2 | 3 | 5 | 20.0 | 4 |
7 | Raising the level of work culture | 1 | 5.6 | 4 | 17 | 26.7 | 3 |
8 | Be honest | 0 | 0 | 5 | 2 | 13.3 | 6 |
Total | 2.5 | 13.9 | 6.1 | 40.7 |
The noble goal of the work is making individuals financially independent [
Thus, these values are regarded as traits that must be taught and acquired by young people in order to prepare them for the labor market, which is an important work value [
To identify the results of this theme, the frequencies and percentages of the analysis categories for this theme were calculated and are included as seen in Table
The descending order of the economic values related to production contained in the provisions of the Saudi Arabian vocational textbook (15 lessons) and the Educational Policy Document (18 parts).
Items | Policy document (18) | Vocational textbook (15) | |||||
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
% | Rank | % | Rank | ||||
1 | Ensuring specialized education | 27 | 150 | 1 | 1 | 6.7 | 2 |
2 | Development of human resources in education | 24 | 133.3 | 2 | 1 | 6.7 | 2 |
3 | Developing human resources through training | 12 | 66.7 | 3 | 2 | 13.3 | 1 |
4 | Building of a productive citizen | 3 | 16.7 | 4 | 2 | 13.3 | 1 |
5 | Productive investment | 2 | 11.1 | 5 | 1 | 6.7 | 2 |
6 | Support of national product | 1 | 5.6 | 6 | 1 | 6.7 | 2 |
Total | 11.5 | 63.9 | 1.3 | 8.7 |
The results of the analysis are shown in Table
The descending order of economic values related to economic development included in the Education Policy Document (18 chapters) and the vocational textbook in Saudi Arabia (15 lessons).
Items | Policy document (18) | Vocational textbook (15) | |||||
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
% | Rank | % | Rank | ||||
1 | Educational planning | 17 | 94.4 | 1 | 0 | 0 | |
2 | Educational funding | 16 | 88.9 | 2 | 0 | 0 | |
3 | Equal educational opportunities | 12 | 66.7 | 3 | 0 | 0 | |
4 | Encouraging scientific research | 10 | 55.6 | 4 | 0 | 0 | |
5 | Linking education outputs to the labor market | 8 | 44.4 | 5 | 2 | 13.3 | |
6 | Linking the theoretical to the practical aspects of education | 7 | 38.9 | 6 | 12 | 80 | |
7 | Benefiting from global expertise | 5 | 27.8 | 7 | 0 | 0 | |
8 | Develop higher education | 3 | 16.7 | 8 | 0 | 0 | |
9 | Fighting corruption | 1 | 5.6 | 9 | 0 | 0 | |
10 | Preservation of public property | 1 | 5.6 | 9 | 0 | 0 | |
Total | 8 | 44.4 | 1.4 | 9.3 |
In conclusion, the inclusion rate of the first four of the 10 values related to economic development in the Educational Policy Document was very high; ranging from 94.4% to 55.6%. However, the inclusion percentage for values 5–10 ranged from 44.4% to 5.5%, which is considered as weak. This proved that the Education Policy Document focused on the principle of equality in educational opportunities, as it is confirmed by Islam, and is an important principle and a social demand. Part of this result is consistent with the findings of Hawala [
This paper analyzed the economic values portrayed in two documents: the Educational Policy Document and the vocational textbook in KSA. Results found that the Education Policy Document only included economic values related to production and did not include the other four themes of economic values. The vocational textbook did not significantly include all economic values and only included one of the values of work theme, which is “to respect the value of time.” This might mean that they regarded that most of the economic values are not as important for our lives, despite the fact that Al-Quran stressed on those economic values [ The Educational Policy Document in KSA should be revised according to the recent developments in the global and local economy and economic values There is a need for updating the concepts, principles, and economic values that come within the context of the Education Policy Document in KSA in light of new economic and societal variables put forward in this study The vocational textbook should be revised to include sufficient economic values as they are necessary for the future generation Further studies should be conducted to target the analysis of other school textbooks in light of the economic values suggested here so that they may be revised to include the most important economic values necessary for students’ lives.
The data used to support the findings of this study are available from the corresponding author upon request.
The authors have no conflicts of interest.