KAU declares its Professional Ethics Charter, in which all reduced inequalities directives, policies and procedures are listed as a guide to all university employees. The policy governance is assured by the "Employees' Disciplinary Committee" which is defined on page 27, point 3, as being formed in accordance with the provisions of Article (82) of the "Regulations For the affairs of Saudi university staff members" and those in their rulings, and its task is to look into the violations that are raised from members, or complaints, or through its access to profession ethics files in the faculties, then recommending the procedures it deems appropriate and reporting them to the The Rector of the University or his designee.

Regarding the students' governance body, KAU also declares its "Regulations for Controlling Students' Behavior" , in which all reduced inequalities directives, policies and procedures are listed as a guide to all university students. The policy governance is assured by the "Students' Disciplinary Committee" which is defined on pages 8 & 9, articles 9 to 14 . Here is a link to “Regulations to controlling students behaviour”:

Women's Empowerment

The Women Empowerment Agency was established in April 2019, with the initiative “Empowering women in the civil service and enhancing their leadership role” in the public sector and lately, the private sector, in an effort to achieve the goal of increasing women's participation in the labor market.

Mission :

The Women Empowerment Agency seeks to create initiatives and projects that support the empowerment of women and people with disabilities in the Saudi labor market and work to implement them in order to achieve the goal of increasing women's participation in the labor market in order to achieve justice in equal opportunities in the labor market.

Objectives:

1. Legislations and policies that support the empowerment of women and people with disabilities.
2. Human resource practices and procedures that achieve equal opportunities for both sexes.
3. Development of promising women leaders and cadreswith disabilities.
4. Promote a positive mental image about the work of women and people with disabilities.
5. Spreading the culture of diversity, inclusiveness and inclusion in the labor market (women - people with disabilities).

Initiatives:

1. Support inclusiveness and diversity in the labor market (women - people with disabilities).
2. Combating discrimination in the labor market.
3. Stimulating and supporting gender balance in the labor market.
4. Encouraging career development (women - people with disabilities).
5. Reducing regulatory restrictions that hinder women from working in the labor market.

Programs and Projects:

• The National Women Leadership Platform project.
• Project to achieve gender balance
• The initiative to support beauty centers
• Women in Boards Project
• The Council of Chambers' agreement with the Women Empowerment Agency to support women empowerment projects
• The initiative to localize the children's hospitality sector
• Experience of establishing a children's hospitality center
• Training and leadership mentoring initiative for women cadres

KAU applies and aligns the government's policies and procedures, as well as its projects, including WOMEN's empowering projects and activities.

To support Gender Equality, KAU is providing efforts to:

1. provide access to various types of educational resources for its FEMALE students.
2. dedicate huge efforts to support the public community through different types of educational lectures, activities and events that would raise the community awareness and information.
3. 3. establish various deanships, centers and units, that have been providing efforts to support WOMEN presentation in under-represented groups.

The Women Empowerment Agency was established in April 2019, with the initiative “Empowering women in the civil service and enhancing their leadership role” in the public sector and lately, the private sector, in an effort to achieve the goal of increasing women's participation in the labor market.

Mission:

The Women Empowerment Agency seeks to create initiatives and projects that support the empowerment of women and people with disabilities in the Saudi labor market and work to implement them in order to achieve the goal of increasing women's participation in the labor market in order to achieve justice in equal opportunities in the labor market.

Objectives:

1. Legislations and policies that support the empowerment of women and people with disabilities.
2. Human resource practices and procedures that achieve equal opportunities for both sexes.
3. Development of promising women leaders and cadres with disabilities.
4. Promote a positive mental image about the work of women and people with disabilities.
5. 5. Spreading the culture of diversity, inclusiveness and inclusion in the labor market (women - people with disabilities).

Initiatives:

1. Support inclusiveness and diversity in the labor market (women - people with disabilities).
2. Combating discrimination in the labor market.
3. Stimulating and supporting gender balance in the labor market.
4. Encouraging career development (women - people with disabilities).
5. Reducing regulatory restrictions that hinder women from working in the labor market.

Programs and Projects:

• The National Women Leadership Platform project.
• Project to achieve gender balance
• The initiative to support beauty centers
• Women in Boards Project
• The Council of Chambers' agreement with the Women Empowerment Agency to support women empowerment projects
• The initiative to localize the children's hospitality sector
• Experience of establishing a children's hospitality center
• Training and leadership mentoring initiative for women cadres

As part of KAU's internal policies and in alignment of the National Vision 2030, in all KAU activities that are related to FEMALES, more than 80% of the attendees and participants are FEMALES, since they are WOMEN empowering access schemes, targeting exclusively FEMALES and organized by FEMALES themselves.

Mentoring Schemes by the Deanship of Student Affairs for Female Students' Activities

A swift look at the page of the Deanship of Student Affairs for Females Activities, presents an executive brief of the various types of Mentoring Schemes and Women Empowering Programs, Statistics, Achievements, and Services for the academic year 2020-2021 where these programs are organized by female students/faculty, attended by female students/faculty, and target female students. The list of activities is very long to detail in here, but the brief description can be fetched from the deanship's page and annual reports.

The university counseling unit is a specialized unit to serve the student and support her in developing her skills, refining her abilities to adapt to life and the requirements of success, and helping her to find possible solutions to the problems she faces to achieve adaptation and psychological harmony.

Our goals:

1. Providing individual and group counseling services to help the university student achieve personal, social, family and academic compatibility.
2. Activating the development programs related to the personal, social, professional and psychological aspects of the university student.
3. Helping female students adjust to university life.
4. Supporting the student in developing her skills and refining her abilities to adapt to life in reducing stress, preventing disorders and dealing with them positively.
5. Spreading the cooperative culture through volunteer work and training and sponsoring preparatory year guides.

University Advising Unit Programs:

• Individual and group counseling:
  Helping students solve their psychological, academic and social problems by providing individual and group counseling.
• Academic support and career counseling:
  Providing support to students who are struggling or facing academic problems. Support is also provided by helping students choose the appropriate major.
• Psychometric:
  Insight into the problems faced by female students by applying psychological standards and developing solutions to them through a group of various measures in all cognitive and psychological fields.
• My Skills Program:
  Developing the life skills of preparatory year students through a series of training courses.
• Entertainment routing:
  Supporting students' educational and awareness ideas and initiatives directed at female students.
• Preparatory Year Guides:
  A program that seeks to communicate with the preparatory year student and help her to reconcile and succeed in her university life through university life guides.
• School visits:
  Working on introducing high school students to how to prepare for university life.

A sample annual report briefing the huge set of activities that are organized, implemented, and attended by FEMALES only.

Providing Equal Opportunities

The 2030 Vision further serves SDG5 by focusing on "providing opportunities for everyone - men and women, young and old - so they may contribute to the best of their abilities.

"Saudi women are yet another great asset. With over 50 percent of Saudi university graduates being female, the government will continue to develop their talents, invest in their productive capabilities and enable them to strengthen their future and contribute to the development of the society and economy.

Saudi Arabia pays considerable attention to basic services which respond to the needs of the population, with education in the forefront of these needs. Therefore, the Ministry of Education seeks to provide education opportunities for all within an adequate education environment, in the light of the Kingdom’s education policy. The Ministry also seeks to raise the quality

of output and to increase the efficiency of scientific research. As a result of the Kingdom’s efforts, the number of students enrolled in general education has increased by more than fourfold, compared to 1980. Notably, the growth of enrolment has been higher for female students, whose numbers have increased by an average annual rate of about 5.3% over the same period. A clear trend of parity can be seen in general education enrolment for both sexes. This corresponds with the gender ratio in total population. Saudi Vision 2030, announced in April 2016, seeks to achieve economic diversification and sustainable development, through a wide range of economic reform and initiatives stemming from the Vision Realization Programs.

KAU’s strategies 3 and 4 have been developed to cope with the Kingdom’s Vision 2030, which was issued in 2016, and which closely monitors women’s involvement in education. Hence, KAU, since 2016, has been also monitoring these figures and working on enhancing the figures that would empower women’s education and satisfy the Vision 2030 goals. The ratio of female students in KAU is more than 56% which is excellent knowing that the number of males in the Saudi population is slightly more than that of females.

Vice Dean for Academic Affairs and Follow-up

KAU also monitors FEMALE students' applications and admission through its Vice Dean of Academic Affairs and Follow-up.

The Vice Deanship has 3 units, 2 of which are directly related to monitoring students' admission applications and graduation monitoring through out the study duration. Here are the 2 related units and their related tasks to application rate, acceptance rate, and study completion rate of FEMALE students. The other units and tasks can be fetched from the vice deanship page .

The Academic Follow-up Unit

1. Performing all the students' needs pertaining to their studies such as the deferment of study, dropping courses, and appointing supervisors
2. Forming committees and granting additional chances to improving grades or exceeding regular study periods
3. Checking students status as to being under enrollment and/or addressing the faculty as such
4. Amending marks for students whose results are (IP) or (IC) in previous semesters and addressing Admissions and Registration as such
5. Issuing status reports for continuing students

The Records Unit

1.Receiving files from the Admissions Unit upon registering students

This special resolution, as well as another set of resolutions have been issued to support the Saudi WOMEN whose graduating number is increasing, in terms of availing enough employment opportunities, availing the suitable working environment, providing WOMEN with the proper policies related to their babies and dying husbands, as well as permitting employers to start applying remote employment for WOMEN. These resolutions should support higher education for girls and some formal procedures for women's work in the government and private sectors.

This decision states, on page 8:

1 - The Higher Education Council studies determining the inputs, outputs, curricula and paths of university education for girls in a way that meets the requirements of development and meets the needs of the labor market.

Deanship of Quality and Academic Accreditation: Assessment & Evaluation Unit

This unit is responsible of tracking different numbers related to Female students Applications, Admission Rate, Study Completion Time, and Number of Females vs Males in subjects. The e-system called EQAUP is used by the University to track all these details.

The following tracking numbers are a sample that shows how numbers' tracking and monitoring, is done, for the various study subjects in terms of Males and FEMALES. The numbers clearly show how FEMALE students supersede MALE students in almost all study subjects, and hence, their percentage is higher than that of Males.

دبلوم 8 / الفصل الدراسي الأول 2019م - شطر الطلاب

دبلوم 8 / الفصل الدراسي الأول 2019م - شطر الطالبات

دبلوم 7 / الفصل الدراسي الثاني 2019م - شطر الطلاب

دبلوم 7 / الفصل الدراسي الثاني 2019م - شطر الطالبات

KAU has around 56% of its students as Females students. Furthermore, KAU is honored to embrace around 5% of its students as students with disabilities. Hence, KAU will continue to develop the talents of people with disabilities and females, invest in their productive capabilities and enable them to strengthen their future and contribute to the development of the society and economy. In this regard, King Abdulaziz University established the Vice Deanship for People with Special Needs whose message is to support students with special needs to obtain an equal educational environment and enable them to take full advantage of the educational, social and cultural opportunities offered at King Abdulaziz University, and their easy access to services and accommodation.

The Student Handbook: Policy to admit and help students with special needs.

KAU published the academic advising student handbook, which is a procedural manual for academic advising policies, in 2013, with yearly updates (if needed) and reviews. This manual contains the policy of the advice programs to help new students with special needs. It is a guiding program that deals with all issues and problems of new university students with special needs. These issues are related to students’ adaptation to different university environments and their capabilities development to communicate and deal with the different groups of university employees and other students in order to secure a "life with minimum issues & disturbances" and full of human security. The paths of the counseling program for people with special needs are listed below:

1. The program is offered once at the beginning of each semester to introduce new students with special needs to the available facilities and services to raise their awareness about their university rights and introduce them to the different environments from which they can benefit and practice their activities similar to their normal peers.
2. The program provides advisory services on an ongoing basis for this category, and supervises the implementation of all the requirements they need.
3. Each semester, a course is offered on the culture of dealing with people with special needs, targeting faculty members and all university employees.
4. A copy of the academic guides printed in Braille will be provided for blind students.
5. Colleges’ guidance stickers are explained, indicating the location of the pathways for students with motor disabilities and their dedicated pathways at the various entrances and buildings of university colleges.

KAU fights all types of discrimination through its policies and procedures, be it the national policies or the university's specific policies. KAU Admission's policy is a non-discrimination policy that is reviewed and published on yearly basis with updates where and when needed. In 2021 about 49% of full-time students of all levels and all programs were females.

KAU established, in 2017, the Vice Deanship for Persons with disabilities, which provides world-class facilitation services and leadership in serving the community of students with special needs and is the first of its kind in all universities of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. KAU annually publishes its student handbook policy which is considered as a positive discrimination as it includes a special program for applicants with disabilities, that

• is offered at the beginning of each semester to introduce new students with special needs to the available facilities and services to raise their awareness about their university rights and help them benefit and practice their activities similar to their normal peers.
• deals with all issues and problems of new university students with special needs.
• provides advisory services on an ongoing basis for this category, and supervises the implementation of all the requirements they need.

The Vice Deanship's Vision is to provide world-class facilitation services and leadership in serving the community of students with special needs. It was established in March 2017 for people with special needs and is the first of its kind in all universities of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia.

The Special Needs Centre, at King Abdul Aziz University, applies the non-discriminative admissions policies towards all people with special needs in all disciplines and including all disabilities.

Its Objectives

Its goal is to promote the full and independent participation of people with special needs in post-secondary education, including students, faculty, staff, and visitors by:

• Enabling people with special needs to take their appropriate place in society in accordance with international agreements.
• Providing an environment that takes into account individual differences for all individuals.
• Taking into account the compatibility of the university environment with the International Convention for Persons with Disabilities.
• Providing the necessary support to acquire the necessary academic skills for students with special needs.
• Optimizing the use of assistive technology to fulfill tasks related to people with disabilities.
• Providing academic, psychological and social counseling for people with disabilities.

It should be noted that the Vice Deanship's policies, that are related to people with special needs and disabilities, are reviewed periodically, last of which was in the academic year 2019-2020.

Special Admissions Facilities for Students with Hearing Disabilities

A new strategic plan for deaf education in the university is deployed, where the university has put in place a number of strategic plans to serve this class, the last of which is the strategic plan for deaf education that aims to make the university an ideal and attractive environment for them according to the Kingdom's Vision 2030 and aims to open a new specialization for male and female students every year. This year Female students, with severe hearing disabilities, were accepted in the Fashion Industry Program at the College of Home Economics which is a unique program designed specifically for the deaf in which students study an introductory year developed specifically for the program.

And for further support, King Abdulaziz University, represented by the Faculty of Tourism, has allocated 10% of the travel and tourism diploma seats for students with special needs to train and qualify them to the job market, in support of the university to train such an important segment of the Saudi society. This initiative comes from the university to show special attention and care for students with special needs. It also falls within the strategic plans of the social responsibility of the university to provide a scientific degree that covers theoretical and scientific aspects in accordance with local aspirations and international standards, and in order to develop the competitive capabilities of male and female students of the university, contribute to building community partnership, and develop programs to care for students with special needs.

Moreover, and as a positive discrimination, each semester

1. a course is offered on the culture of dealing with people with special needs, targeting faculty members and all university employees.
2. a copy of the academic guides printed in Braille is provided for blind students.
3. faculties’ guidance stickers are explained, indicating the location of the pathways for students with motor disabilities and their dedicated pathways at the various entrances and buildings of university colleges.

In this regards, KAU publishes its admission policy which states the admission conditions without any discriminative rule or condition. Rather, and as a positive discrimination, it explicitly requires official documents for applicants with special needs (page 17). The full admission guide is published on the vice deanship of admission webpage and also on the social media.

KAU offers vice deanship dedicated for international scholarships, in addition to a dedicated deanship of students affairs that ensures the implementation of all polices including the equality policy. Moreover, various efforts towards enriching the diversity and ensuring the inclusiveness of students are made like the Arabic courses for the non-Arabic speakers offered at KAU, and the Safety and Risk Management Culture Promotion for the Hearing-Impaired Initiative.

In collaboration with the occupational safety and health administration as well as the emergency and disaster center this initiative was launched to prepare and habilitate a generation of hearing-impaired individuals with the abilities to overcome disasters and avoid dangerous situations by raising their awareness through promoting safety culture and educating them about correct disaster responses and safety measures. This initiative aims to shed more light on this important group in our community and some of the initiative’s contributions include the translation of over 40 brochures related to safety and disaster management to sign language, educational lectures, educational public events, and competitions for raising the public’s awareness in dealing with the hearing-impaired. Finally, this initiative ultimately desires to accomplish unity among all parts of the community and its many efforts dedicated towards the hearing-impaired have contributed greatly to achieving that.

For the sake of supporting under-represented groups, a new strategic plan for deaf education, in the university, has been deployed, where the university has put in place a number of strategic plans to serve this class, the last of which is the strategic plan for deaf education that aims to make the university an ideal and attractive environment for them according to the Kingdom's Vision 2030 and aims to open a new specialization for male and female students every year. In 2019, Female students, with severe hearing disabilities, were accepted in the Fashion Industry Program at the College of Home Economics which is a unique program designed specifically for the deaf in which students study an introductory year developed specifically for the program.

A sample of a study plan (preparatory year) for the deaf

KAU gives a big attention to applicants from under-represented groups, such as, Women, People with disabilities and International (non-Saudi) people.

The university is in continuous tracking and collecting of under-represented groups' applications and admission rates, which is clearly reflected in the related statistics gathered about such groups, as can be seen below: KAU Admission's policy is a non-discrimination policy that is reviewed and published on yearly basis with updates where and when needed. In 2021 about 49% of full-time students of all levels and all programs were females. Of which 11% were non-Saudis coming from low or lower middle-income countries enrolled in 1st degree programs and about 2% enrolled in postgraduate programs. KAU also had about 1700 students with disabilities and 20 employees.

This is a critical indicator to understand how KAU is a preferred destination for Saudi Women and it shows how KAU is supporting Gender Equality & Reducing Inequalities through facilitating the admission, follow-up, and support of the minority groups.

Tracking admission can be accessed on the deanship of admission webpage as shown below:

Applications' tracking for under-represented groups, in King Abdulaziz University, is done through several channels, these include:

1. University Vice Presidency for Female Students
2. Vice Dean of Academic Affairs & Follow-up
3. Deanship of Quality & Academic Accreditation
4. Deanship for Persons with Disabilities

Vice Dean for Academic Affairs and Follow-up: Tracks Applications of Under-represented Groups

KAU also monitors FEMALE students' applications and admission through its Vice Dean of Academic Affairs and Follow-up.

The Vice Deanship has 3 units, 2 of which are directly related to monitoring students' admission applications and graduation monitoring through out the study duration. Here are the 2 related units and their related tasks to application rate, acceptance rate, and study completion rate of FEMALE students. The other units and tasks can be fetched from the vice deanship page.

The Academic Follow-up Unit

1. Performing all the FEMALE students' needs pertaining to their studies such as the deferment of study, dropping courses, and appointing supervisors
2. Forming committees and granting additional chances to improving grades or exceeding regular study periods
3. Checking FEMALE students' status as to being under enrollment and/or addressing the faculty as such
4. Amending marks for FEMALE students whose results are (IP) or (IC) in previous semesters and addressing Admissions and Registration as such
5. Issuing status reports for continuing FEMALE students

The Records Unit

1. Receiving files from the Admissions Unit upon registering FEMALE students

Deanship of Quality and Academic Accreditation- Measurement & Evaluation Unit: Measures & Tracks Applications of under-represented Groups

This unit is responsible of tracking different numbers related to Female students Applications, Admission Rate, Study Completion Time, and Number of Females vs Males in subjects.