University of Kuwait
http://www.kuniv.edu.kw/?q=&Lang=enUniversity of Kuwait offers a profound learning experience, symbolizing the students hope for tomorrow. Its programs are diverse and competitive, challenging minds, inducing critical thinking and encouraging creativity through a multitude of exposures, interactions and experiences that are unique, and intellectually stimulating.
The university’s 13 colleges offer wide ranging programs in sciences and humanities at the undergraduate, graduate and doctoral levels, with an internationally renowned and culturally diverse community of professors and academicians, providing the highest level of teaching, research and scholarship.
History
Kuwait University was established in October 1966, five years after Kuwait became an independent state. It started with the Colleges of Science, Arts and Education, and a women’s college, with 418 students on roll and 31 faculty members. By 1999/2000, the students' strength increased to 19,001 with a proportionate increase in faculty that reached 1,042. Despite this expansion, the university budget, which was KD 117,111,000 KD for the fiscal year 1998/1999, declined to KD 106,689,000, illustrating the administrative care in maintaining institutional developmental momentum while preserving resources and ensuring rational and optimum utilization of available funds and facilities.
The institutional expansion continued alongside, and within an year of its establishment three additional Colleges of
Law, Shari’a, Commerce, Economics and Political Science (presently the College of Business Administration) were inaugurated following the issuance of the Amiri Decree on April 1, 1967. Subsequent Amiri Decrees led to intense institutional development throughout this period resulting in:
· Separating the Colleges of Science and Medicine on October 20, 1967;
· Establishing the College of Medicine on July 3, 1973, with its academic session starting in 1976/1977;
· Establishing the College of Engineering and Petroleum on December 4, 1974;
· Inaugurating the College of Graduate Studies in 1977;
· Inaugurating the College of Education on May 17, 1980, until then the Department of Education at the College of Arts, with classes staring in 1981/1982.
· Establishing a Centre for Civil Engineering in response to the decision of the Minister of Education and Higher Education on January 13, 1982, followed by similar centers for Medicine, Allied Health Sciences and Nursing.
· Separating the College of Allied Health Sciences and Nursing from Medicine on June 22, 1982;
· Establishing the College of Pharmacy in February 1996;
· Establishing the College of Dentistry in May 1996;
· Establishing the College of Social Sciences in 1998.
Faculties
Law
The Faculty of Law was initially established as a combined Law & Shari’a faculty; vide the Amiri Decree of April 1, 1967, to prepare qualified human cadres for the State’s outstanding needs concerning public attorneys, judges and investigators for legal institutions. The faculty disseminates legal knowledge and awareness in society through lectures, publications and media, and promotes quality in legal domain by offering training courses and seminars, encouraging research and publications, and strengthening cultural relations with its counterparts in the Arab World. It also cooperates with State institutions in preparing projects on laws, regulations and legal studies, as requested.
Later, with the establishment of the new College of Shari’a & Islamic Studies, following another Amiri Decree, the College of Law attained an independent status, and the Department of Shari’a moved to the newly constituted Faculty of Shari’a & Islamic Studies. Thereafter, the graduating students from the Faculty of Law were awarded the Degree in Law. The faculty revived the four-year system in July 1989, following the University Council decision, and in June 1993, the graduate program in Law was initiated, leading to the award of Master’s Degree in Law.
Art
The Faculty of Arts was among the earliest faculties to be established at Kuwait University in 1966, opening the doors for the students to pursue higher education programs conducive to the developmental needs of the modern emerging civic society.
The faculty is committed to academic excellence and public service, and its primary mission is to cultivate in students the values of independent thinking and intellectual growth with a keen sense of responsibility, as members of a modern democratic society. The Faculty of Arts was initially established as a multidisciplinary faculty, catering to widely divergent needs of the student community pursuing Arts, Education and Science programs. In 1971, the science stream separated into a full-fledged and an independent Faculty of Science. Ten years later, in 1981, the College of Education also became an independent faculty. The major programs offered by the Faculty until 1998, included Arabic Language & Literature, English Language & Literature, History, Philosophy, Mass Communication, Geography, Psychology, Sociology & Social Work. In 1998, an independent Faculty of Social Sciences was established, leading to the transfer of three academic programs of Psychology, Geography and Sociology & Social Work to the newly established Faculty. Thus, the Faculty of Arts now offers five major programs including Arabic and English Language and Literature, History, Philosophy and Mass Communication, leading to the award of Bachelor’s degree in Arts. In addition, Master’s degree is also offered in select postgraduate programs offered by the Faculty.
Science
The Faculty of Science originated as a combined Science, Arts and Education Faculty in 1966/67. In 1971, it acquired an independent status vide the Amiri Decree of October 20, 1971, leading to the separation of Science from Arts and Education components. The newly constituted Faculty of Science had six Departments -- Mathematics, Chemistry, Physics, Zoology, Botany and Geology. In 1977, the Department of Biochemistry was added, and in 1989 the Department of Statistics & Operations Research. In 1997, the Departments of Zoology, Botany & Microbiology and Biochemistry were merged under the unified umbrella of the new Department of Biological Sciences. Like wise, a new Department of Earth & Environmental Sciences was established by grouping together Geology, Desert Studies, Marine and Environmental Sciences.
The Faculty has nearly 3000 students and 191 staff members. A comprehensive evaluation of programs ensures academic quality to turn out competent graduates for community and national needs. The Faculty contributes to community services, provides technical and scientific support to public and private sectors, organizes work shops and training courses for public’s benefit, and effectively contributes to country’s development. The faculty has world class facilities and resources, including the Electron Microscopy Unit, Computer Center, Statistics Laboratory, Central and Glass Workshops, Liquid Nitrogen Unit, Herbarium, Marine Biology Unit, Green House, Geology Museum, SAF and Analab facilities.
High school graduates joining the faculty are accepted under two categories -- Biological Sciences and Mathematical and Natural Sciences. The Faculty offers Bachelor’s degree in Zoology, Botany, Microbiology, Biochemistry, Molecular Biology, Mathematics, Computer Science, Chemistry, Physics, Applied Physics, Geology, Desert Sciences, Marine Sciences, Applied Statistics, and Statistics & Operations Research. The Master’s degree is offered in Pure & Applied Mathematics, Computer Science, Chemistry, Physics, Zoology, Botany, Microbiology, Biochemistry, Geology, and Statistics & Operations Research. The doctoral program is offered in Chemistry and Mathematics, leading to the award of PhD degree. A student requires a total of 126 credits for graduating, and English is the medium of instruction.
Medicine
The Faculty of Medicine was established in 1973, and has since developed into an internationally recognized medical school, serving Kuwait and the Gulf region. Its student strength has grown from 48 in 1976, to the current enrolment level of 80 students per year. The first batch of students graduated in 1983, and so far 815 students have successfully completed the program, and have been awarded the B.M., B.Ch. degree. The faculty offers a seven-year medical program, and currently has 600 students on roll, in addition to 500 academic, technical and administrative staff.
The Faculty is organized into several Departments, including Anatomy, Biochemistry, Community Medicine & Behavioral Science, Medicine, Microbiology, Nuclear Medicine, Obstetrics & Gynecology, Pediatrics, Pathology, Pharmacology & Toxicology, Physiology, Primary Care, Psychiatry, Radiology, and Surgery. The faculty offers undergraduate program as well as graduate program in Microbiology, Pathology, Physiology and Pharmacology. In addition, the doctoral program is offered in Microbiology and Physiology, which leads to the award of PhD Degree. The faculty’s teaching hospital is Mubarak Al-Kabeer, in addition to facilities at Al-Amiri, Al-Adan, Maternity, Farwaniya, Jahra, Ahmadi, Sabah, Chest Diseases, Al-Razi, Psychiatric and Ibn Sina hospitals, including several polyclinics throughout Kuwait.
The academic staff and students have access to high quality facilities for teaching and research, comparable to distinguished and well established institutions elsewhere in the world. These include sophisticated labs, equipment, animal and technology resources. Professional services are offered to the Ministry of Public Health, and consultative services to various hospitals involving sophisticated diagnostic tests and specialized procedures, including therapeutic drug monitoring and toxicological screening. Seminars and workshops are organized for the medical community, and various courses offered to students of the Faculties of Allied Health Sciences & Nursing, Pharmacy and Dentistry.
Engineering & Petroleum
The College of Engineering & Petroleum provides quality engineering education for the needs of the society, and the institutional vision to develop an elite College as the leading engineering institution in the Middle East, recognized for its outstanding education, research and outreach programs, and for the quality, character and integrity of its graduates. The College endeavors to create a dynamic academic and research environment, keeping pace with scientific and technological developments in engineering for addressing immediate and long-term needs of the society.
The College has eight departments, and awards Bachelor’s of Engineering degree in Chemical, Civil, Computer, Electrical, Industrial & Management Systems, Mechanical and Petroleum Engineering, and Architecture. The Graduate programs are offered in Chemical, Civil, Electrical, Mechanical, Computer and Petroleum Engineering. The students are admitted to the College after successful completion of the secondary school, with a science major or its equivalent, and with a minimum GPA of 80%. The number of registered students during 2000 were 2,365, and since its establishment, the College has graduated 5,265 students with Bachelor’s degree, and 381 with Master’s. The College has 182 staff members, and a well-developed scholarship program facilitates Kuwaiti nationals to pursue doctoral studies abroad. Each student must satisfactorily complete a minimum of 144 credits, with a common 73-credit component under Core Engineering Curriculum, and 71 credits for major departmental program.
Allied Health Sciences
The Faculty of Allied Health Sciences is an integral element of the Kuwait University’s four-faculty Health Sciences Center that also houses the faculties of Medicine, Dentistry and Pharmacy. The faculty was established in June 1982, with five departments, and offers 4-year Bachelor’s Degree program in Medical Laboratory Sciences, Physical Therapy, Radiological Sciences and Health Information Administration. Since 2001, the Nursing program has been merged with the Public Authority for Applied Education and Training.
The Faculty has 20 academic staff with additional 22 senior lecturers and lecturers, and 366 students registered in various allied programs. Each program requires a minimum number of contact hours, essential for attaining the requisite professional competence. In addition to lectures, the students get extensive hands-on experience both at the laboratory and in clinical rotations at the Ministry of Health for practical exposure. English is the language of instruction.
Education
The Faculty of Education was established vide an Amiri decree of May 1980, in response to a long standing need for a national workforce in the field of education. The faculty is mandated to prepare qualified teaching cadres, and the college has remained committed to its mission and sphere of operations with a proactive response to national demand for education, and optimization of the teaching workforce. The faculty is located at Keifan campus, and is organized into several academic departments, technical centers and specialized units. Its major departments include Curricula & Teaching Methods, Educational Psychology, Education Foundations, Educational Administration & Planning. In addition, there are two technical centers concerning Educational Technology, and Student Teaching, while its specialized units include Psychological Counseling and Academic Activities.
The faculty offers programs at three levels, Undergraduate Level, Postgraduate diploma and Graduate studies. Its undergraduate programs include courses for preparing Kindergarten, Primary, Intermediate and Secondary stage teachers in various areas and subjects. The faculty offers Postgraduate Diploma in Education, Psychological Counseling, and Special Education, while Graduate program includes Master’s in Curricula & Teaching Methods, Education Foundation, Educational Administration and School Counseling. The faculty provides counseling services, guidance, and services to various sectors of the country, and maintains effective partnerships with other institutions to prepare quality and competitive teachers, in addition to fostering highly organized policies and procedures for research and development.
Business
The College of Business Administration was established in the year 1967, initially as the College of Commerce, Economics & Political Science. Later, major developmental transformations necessitated its reconstitution as the College of Business Administration (CBA) in conformity to technology and trends in the sphere of business education at Kuwait, leading to the formation of the present Departments of Management & Marketing, Finance & Financial Institutions, Accounting, Quantitative Methods and Information Systems, Economics and Public Administration. The College prepares graduates for professional positions in public and private sector businesses, organizations, institutions and corporations.
During 2000/01, the college’s total student strength was 2,249, pursuing various business and administrative programs. Currently, CBA is eagerly pursuing AACSB international accreditation (Association to Advance Collegiate Schools of Business), where the College confirms to rigid standards concerning its vision, mission and objectives, faculty composition and development, curriculum content and evaluation, international resources and responsibilities, students and intellectual contributions. CBA has set a target date of the year 2004/2005 to acquire the AACSB international accreditation. The college lays strong emphasis on self assessment regimens in faculty staff, programs and students, and provides community consultative services to business and governmental organizations to facilitate decision-makers and decision-making process. The College also has an independent body, the Centre of Excellence in Management, for envisioning matters concerning human growth, administrative research and technical development at diverse levels and in various organizations, and CBA offers Bachelor’s degree in seven areas which are Management, Economics, Marketing, Accounting, Finance, Management Science, Management of Information Systems. Total credits required for graduation are 130.
In addition to Bachelor’s, the Faculty also offers a Master’s program in Business Administrations (MBA), and prepares students for pursuing careers as effective leaders and managers for the country’s human resource needs in the private and public sectors.
The Faculty is located at the sprawling, architecturally distinguished new campus at Shuwaikh, with state-of-the-art facilities and resources compatible to the best in the world.
Pharmacy
The Faculty of Pharmacy is relatively recent in its origin, having been established in February 1996. It is a constituent element of the four-faculty Health Sciences Centre of Kuwait University, and located within the premises of Faculty of Medicine temporarily, with facilities earmarked for teaching and research, staff and administrative offices, and laboratories. The Faculty enrolled its first batch of 32 students in the academic year 1997/98, and the following years saw a steady increase in student intake to reach the present strength of 200 students. The faculty has already turned out two successful batches of graduate pharmacists, with the first qualifying batch getting their degrees in the year 2002, at the successful completion of the intense five-year Pharmacy program.
Dentistry
The Faculty of Dentistry is relatively a newly established faculty at Kuwait University, established vides an Amiri Decree in 1996, which paved the way for requisite groundwork for raising an internationally compatible Dentistry facility and program. The faculty’s mission is to promote oral and general health in Kuwait through education, research and cooperation with other professional health institutions and authorities, as well as the community at large. The faculty is committed to providing leading professionals and experts in oral health in Kuwait through teaching, training, research and clinical practice. The Faculty is an integral part of the Health Sciences Centre (HSC), offering a six-and-a-half years program, with the Dental students continuing their studies together with the medical students for two-and-a-half years in the Faculty of Medicine, taking courses in Oral Anatomy, Oral Microbiology, Oral Pathology, etc., and from the 9th to the 13th semesters, the students study the clinical education program in Dentistry.
The Faculty is presently operating from its administrative office at Hawally, with few offices located at the Health Sciences Centre, fourth floor. The temporary dental clinic, located near Kuwait Dental Association, started functioning in 2002, and a temporary laboratory is located on the 5th floor of the HSC car park at Jabriya. The permanent University Dental Clinic is under construction near Mubarak Al Kabeer Hospital, and is expected to be ready by 2005.
The Faculty’s programs are directed towards developing competency in comprehensive dentistry rather than mastering dental disciplines, and the curriculum encourages ethical behavior, scientifically based problem solving, critical thinking and life-long learning. The purpose is to prepare professional dentists in diverse dental specialties to meet national requirements, in collaboration with the Kuwait Ministry of Health (KMH), the Kuwait Dental Association (KDA) and the Kuwait Institute for Medical Specialties (KIMS), for prevention of oral diseases and provision of oral health care.
Social Sciences
The Faculty of Social Sciences was established in 1998, and has four Departments -- Sociology & Social Work, Psychology, Geography and Political Science. The latter was earlier a part of the College of Business Administration. In 2001, the Faculty expanded with the inclusion of an additional Department of Library & Information Sciences. The faculty primarily seeks to preserve and disseminate knowledge at local, national, and regional levels, and prepares well-qualified scholars for spearheading development, playing a vital role in building scientific alliances and linkages with world renowned institutions, thus contributing to social, cultural and economic development of the Kuwaiti Society.
The Faculty attracts a large number of students, with nearly 2,394 students on roll, and 73 academic staff. The programs are continuously evaluated to ensure quality, international compatibility and relevancy. The faculty is currently located at Keifan, and would soon be moving to its newly constructed premises at Shuwaikh.
The faculty offers major programs in Sociology & Social Work, Political Science, Psychology and Geography, leading to the award of Bachelor’s Degree (B.A.) in Social Sciences. The Postgraduate studies are offered in Psychology, and Library & Information Sciences, leading to Master’s Degree. A total of 126 credits are required for graduation, with the exception of Political Science, which requires 120 units. The faculty pursues an active research program, and its resources include 6 labs, which would further be expanded to include 4 additional labs. The students actively participates in wide-ranging social, cultural and sporting activities.
Women
The College for Women is the newest Faculty on Kuwait University’s continuously expanding scientific horizon. Established in 2003, its vision is to prepare competent graduates with intellectual and professional skills and abilities for leadership and challenge, creating a better future for Kuwait. The faculty’s mission is to develop the students' intellectual and personal strengths, in an era of Information Age, implementing outcomes-based learning academic program model in response to indigenous societal and market needs. The focus is primarily on application of contemporary knowledge, noble humanitarian values, basic information technology and computer skills for effective functioning in a rapidly changing world. The Faculty aims at preparing qualified and competent graduates, committed to lifelong learning with highest standards of professional Arabic and Islamic ethics and social responsibilities.
Libraries
The Kuwait University Libraries Administration (KULA) supervises the administrative and technical aspects concerning the university libraries and is considered a basic center for academic and research activities at Kuwait University.
The technical divisions handle the centralized acquisitions and cataloging processes, whereas the libraries provide information services to the university colleges.
The Kuwait University Libraries Administration (KULA) supervises the administrative and technical aspects concerning the university libraries and is considered a basic center for academic and research activities at Kuwait University.
The technical divisions handle the centralized acquisitions and cataloging processes, whereas the libraries provide information services to the university colleges.
