Dismantling the perceived barriers to the implementation of national higher education accreditation guidelines in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia

The Kingdom of Saudi Arabia has invested heavily in its social sector, especially in setting up new schools and universities. The aim of the development is to prepare the Kingdom for a future that is not dependent on its oil resources which are predicted to run out in less than a hundred years. Driven by the country's monarch, King Abdullah, many of the changes in the higher education sector are top-down management decisions that are meeting some resistance in their implementation. This paper considers some causes of the perceived barriers to implementation of Saudi Arabia's national higher education policies, with a specific focus on the dissemination and implementation of the National Qualifications Framework for post secondary education in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia devised by the National Commission for Academic Accreditation & Assessment. The paper proposes a networked management system as a possible solution to overcome the barriers. Finally, it argues that while there are a number of factors that may slow down the Kingdom's development of its higher education sector, they are unlikely to derail it completely.