Transition services for high school students with intellectual disability in Saudi Arabia: issues and recommendations

Abstract

In 2005, Saudi high schools began providing transition services for students with intellectual disability. However, recent studies have found that these services need improvement. Therefore, this study explored current transition services to help identify challenges that weaken these services and to recommend improvements for them. Eleven teachers of students with intellectual disability were interviewed, and data were analyzed qualitatively. Study findings concluded that four main issues must be addressed to advance Saudi transition services: (1) special education teacher preparation programs, (2) transition services’ policies and regulations, (3) Individualized Transition Plans, and (4) collaborative practices.

Introduction

In land area, the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia is Asia’s largest Arabian country, with a population of approximately 33.5 million (Alrashidi and Phan 2015). The Kingdom is very economically wealthy due to its oil production, profit from which has helped the government finance new projects, including investment in education. Such investment has positively affected development of special education programs for students with disabilities throughout the country (Alnahdi 2016).

During the last two decades, in fact, special education services for students with disabilities have improved significantly (Alnahdi et al. 2019). This is reflected in the quantity and accessibility of special education programs. Indeed, the latest broadening-of-care provision included five major categories: intellectual disability, autism, deaf/hearing impairment, blind/visual impairment, and multiple disabilities. Consequent to more programs and new disability categories, the number of special education teachers has increased. Significantly, according to the latest copy of the Regulatory Guide for Special Education (RGSE; The Ministry of Education, 2016) issued by the Department of Special Education in the Ministry of Education (MOE), the term “special education teacher” was formerly used to refer to all teachers working in special education programs or institutes and holding at least a bachelor’s degree in special education. Similarly, the term “teacher of students with intellectual disability” formerly referred to teachers who specialized in intellectual disability in college students and who teach only students with intellectual disability (MOE, 2011). More specifically, the MOE now classifies special education teachers who graduated from Saudi public universities into five categories, teachers of students with: intellectual disability, learning disability, deaf and hearing impairments, autism, and multiple disabilities. All departments of special education in Saudi public universities are administratively governed by the Saudi MOE, and this ministry is in control of teachers’ employments after graduation, so the MOE hires a category of specialist according to a schools’ need.

Education of students with intellectual disability

Prior to 1958, Saudi individuals with disability received no formal special education services (Alquraini 2013), instead receiving what assistance their families could provide. In 1962, to help individuals with disabilities, the government established the Department of Special Education in the MOE (Alnahdi 2016). Then, the new Department of Special Education improved learning and rehabilitation services for only three disabilities: blindness, deafness, and intellectual disability. In 1964, three institutes for students with blindness were established in different cities. In 1972, two institutes were established for students with deafness and intellectual disability.

From the 1970s to the 1990s, educational services for individuals with intellectual disability slowly shifted from institutes to special programs in public schools (Al-Mousa 2010). However, a serious turning point occurred (Alnahdi 2016) in the late 1990s when the MOE began integrating students with intellectual disability into designated classes in some regular schools. Since that time, the number of public schools with special education classes for students with intellectual disability, and the number of special education teachers have increased rapidly. However, the MOE publishes only limited statistical information on the numbers of students with intellectual disability, special education programs and institutions, and special education teachers. According to the latest (2011) MOE statistic, of all special education programs in regular schools, 62% serve students with intellectual disability, approximately 18,000 students (Table 1). Currently, students with mild intellectual disability (the majority) receive educational services in special classes at public schools, while students with moderate to severe intellectual disability receive services at special institutes (Alnahdi et al. 2019).

Table 1.

Numbers of institutions, programs, students, and teachers 1970–2011 in Saudi Arabian education for intellectual disability.

Year	Institutions	Programs	Students with intellectual disability	Teachers of students with intellectual disability
2011	990	3,310	18,000	4,500
1992	14	233	2,250	276
1980s	Unknown	Unknown	827	Unknown
1970s	2	None	100	Unknown

^*Source: Saudi Ministry of Education (2011).

Educational placements for students with intellectual disability

In Saudi Arabia, placing students with intellectual disability depends mainly on students’ Intellectual Quotient (IQ) scores. The Arabic/Saudi version of the Wechsler Intelligence Scale is the formal intelligence test used by the Saudi MOE (Mohammad 2015). Based on the scale score, students occupy three main categories. Students with a score from 55 to 70 are considered to have mild intellectual disability, while students with a score from 40 to 55 are considered to have moderate intellectual disability. The MOE looks at the previous two categories as students who can learn and train vocationally (Alnahdi 2016). Finally, students with a score of less than 40 are considered to have severe intellectual disability, and they usually have other disability(ies) as well. The MOE looks at these students as dependents (Alnahdi 2016).

Saudi Arabia has two educational placements for students with intellectual disability. First, special education institutes are specifically for students with severe intellectual disability or other disability(ies) along with intellectual disability. At these institutes, students usually receive education from morning until afternoon. Second, special education programs and classes for students with mild-to-moderate intellectual disability are held in regular schools or, as Al-Mousa (2010) terms it, “mainstream schooling.” Here, mainstream schooling is defined as a regular school that designates special education classrooms only for students with intellectual disability, while most classrooms are only for students without disabilities. In such schools, students with and without disabilities are together only during non-academic activities or lunch time. In addition, mainstream schooling usually involves other services for students with intellectual disability, for instance, a resource room and specialists in psychology, sociology, and speech therapy (Al-Mousa 2010). Because only mainstream schooling provides transition services for students with intellectual disability, it is this study’s main focus.

Legal aspects of special education and transition services

Looking at special education’s history in Saudi Arabia, one easily sees improvement in services for individuals with disabilities, but such improvement cannot be occur without new acts and regulations regarding the rights of individuals with disabilities. In 2000, the Saudi government issued the most powerful and popular act the Disabled Care System (Bureau of Experts at the Council of Ministers 2021), which focused mainly on educational and employment rights of individuals with disabilities. For education, the act states that all students with disabilities must be provided appropriate educational services at all levels (preschool, general education, technical education, and higher education) in proportion to their capabilities and needs. The act further stipulates that their enrollment be facilitated, along with continuous evaluation of curricula and services provided (The Ministry of Education, 2006). Consequent to the Disabled Care System, the MOE opened more special education programs for students with disabilities in regular schools (mainstream schooling). Subsequently, the numbers of students with disabilities (especially those with mild to moderate disabilities) who transferred from special education institutions to regular schools increased significantly, as did the number of special education teachers.

For employment, the Disabled Care System states that all individuals with disabilities must receive training and rehabilitation services and provision of appropriate training courses. They must also be included in jobs that suit their capabilities and qualifications, to give them the opportunity to reveal their capabilities, to enable them to earn income, and to seek to improve their performance level through training while working (The Ministry of Education, 2006). For students with disabilities in schools, however, the act has not been entirely effective. Students with disabilities throughout Saudi Arabia received no vocational training and rehabilitation in schools until 2005 (Alnahdi 2016). From 2005 to 2015, transition services were initiated, mostly in big cities. In 2016, however, the MOE issued a revised RGSE, stating that students with disabilities must receive transition services in schools (Alquraini 2019). Currently, transition services in Saudi Arabia are implemented according to the RGSE.

Current transition services for students with intellectual disability

The RGSE (2016) defines transition services as designed for each students’ abilities, to ensure a smooth, easy transition to public, independent life. Transition planning’s purpose is to prepare an individual with a disability to transfer from one life stage to another, and transition services should be included in each student’s Individualized Educational Plan (IEP), whose authors define these services’ nature, how to present them, their duration, and the extent to which the individual can benefit from them (RGSE, 2016). Important to remember is that transition services in Saudi Arabia is still new, only 15 years old. In addition, transition services are provided only for high school students with intellectual disability (Alnahdi 2016), which means no such services are provided in elementary and middle school.

From the first to ninth grade, students with intellectual disability study in special education classes in regular schools. Teachers of students with intellectual disability employ MOE curricula, focused mainly on basic skills to help students succeed academically and live independently. For instance, the Arabic language class focuses on teaching basic reading and writing skills, while life skills class focuses on basic independence skills, such as brushing teeth and wearing clean clothes. Science class covers basic arithmetic operations and other subjects, for instance, colors. As students with intellectual disability obtain knowledge and mature, their curricula contain more advanced academic and life skills.

In high school, students with intellectual disability generally continue the same process as in elementary and middle school. Students in grades 10 and 11 take classes that teach mainly academic and independent life skills. In grade 12, however, the Department of Special Education requires all public high schools to begin providing transition services (Almalky 2018). Specifically, during the first semester of grade 12, schools must teach a new class called “Initial Vocational,” which has its own textbook by MOE, also called Initial Vocational. The class teaches work skills, such as social skills for the work environment, communication skills, teamwork skills, and time management skills. In the second semester, the MOE requires schools to train students with intellectual disability for a vocation; students stop taking classes at school and begin what is considered a full-time internship that runs from 8:00 a.m. until 1:00 p.m., five days a week for a semester, mostly in grocery stories.

Research problem and study purpose

Perhaps because transition services for students with intellectual disability are relatively new, limited studies have been published in Saudi Arabia. First provided at Saudi high schools only 15 years ago (Alnahdi 2016), they are still provided only in the last year of high school. Some studies investigating transition services have found, for instance, that limited transition services are provided in schools, with almost no administrative support, and almost no cooperation between schools and families (Alnahdi 2014, Alquraini 2017; Almalky 2018, Almalki et al. 2021). Based on these findings, providing a low quality of transition services means students ill-prepared for the job market and an increased rate of unemployment for individuals with intellectual disability. Therefore, this study investigated issues and concerns related to transition services for Saudi public high school students with intellectual disability. The investigation identified program challenges and weaknesses that prevent students’ receipt of full transition benefits. Thus, study findings will assist in discovering methods of improving the quality of Saudi high schools’ transition services for students with intellectual disability.

Research question

This study sought to answer the question: “What issues and concerns prevent teachers of students with intellectual disability from delivering appropriate transition services to students with intellectual disability?”

Method

Study design

To achieve this study’s purpose, I used the phenomenological approach as a qualitative method because it focuses particularly on individual experiences, perceptions, and beliefs (Palinkas 2014). Mohajan (2018) also found this approach appropriate a participant share an experience that found to be described extensively. Therefore, this design assisted participants providing much information for the study. Moreover, I used thematic analysis to identify and examine themes within the dataset, transcribed from interviews (Gormley 2015). Significantly, since this study was not hypothesis driven, the author did not attempt to make predications.

Participants and sampling procedure

For discussion of issues and concerns that prevent transition services from being developed in Saudi Arabia, 11 teachers of students with intellectual disability were selected for interviews. Such purposive sampling is helpful because it allows researchers to select those who can provide the best answers to the research question (Stewart et al., 2014). These public high school teachers from different cities instruct only students with intellectual disability. Some teach in large cities (over a million population), some in mid-size cities (about 500 thousand), and others teach in small towns (less than 10 thousand). Teachers in large cities usually have more than 10 students per semester, while teachers in mid-size cities usually have approximately five students. In small towns, teachers usually have a few students each semester. Selecting teachers from a variety of cities allows comparison among provided transition services. Last, eight teachers hold bachelor’s degrees in special education, but three hold master’s degrees (Table 2).

Table 2.

Demographics and characteristics of the 11 special education teacher interviewees.

Teacher	Degree	Teaching Location (City)	City Size	Years of Experience
1	B.A.	Riyadh	Large	13
2	B.A.	Riyadh	Large	9
3	B.A.	Jeddah	Large	6
4	B.A.	Taif	Medium	6
5	B.A.	Al-Quwaiiyah	Small	8
6	B.A.	Afif	Small	9
7	B.A.	Al-Bahaj	Medium	7
8	B.A.	Sabya	Small	7
9	M.A.	Riyadh	Large	12
10	M.A.	Riyadh	Large	5
11	M.A.	Al-Kharj	Medium	7

All participants were interviewed separately, face-to-face in a meeting room at King Saud University. Those who lived in Riyadh or close by were easily interviewed. The author was fortunate to interview those who live away from Riyadh at King Saudi University too, because they were in the first semester of their master’s program. In Saudi Arabia, the MOE allows teachers accepted to graduate programs at public universities to take two years off from teaching to finish their programs. All participants were interviewed within two months. Participants were each emailed the interview questions to enable them to understand the questions and to prepare their best answers. At the beginning of each session, participants were welcomed and asked to add more information even if it did not seem related to the interview questions. During interviews, participants were provided explanations of questions they did not fully understand. Lastly, for data collection, all sessions were audio recorded.

Interview questions

The author developed interview questions to investigate current issues and concerns regarding provided transition services for students with intellectual disability in Saudi public high schools. The questions first explored current practices and then issues and concerns that might prevent teachers of students with intellectual disability from providing appropriate transition services. All questions were open-ended (Table 3), and their validity and reliability were measured by two professors who, after making some adjustments, agreed that the questions were accurate, valid, and credible.

Table 3.

Interview questions.

Give me an overview of how transition services work in your school?

Explain the process of delivering transition services from the beginning to the end in your school?

How would you describe the effect of current transition services on your students?

What issues and concerns do you have regarding provided transition services in your school?

Explain the role of families of students with intellectual disability in terms of transition services?

Explain the relationship between your school and business agencies in terms of training students with intellectual disability vocationally?

What issues and concerns do you have with your partnerships with families and business agencies?

Do you have anything else would you like to add?

Data collection

To collect this study’s data, I relied on two methods. First, observation was selected to gather information on transition services for students with intellectual disability in approximately 22 special education programs. I visited these programs either for the study or for supervision of pre-service special education teachers. Second, to obtain deeper understanding than observation alone allows, I used data collected from 11 interviews to gain deep understanding of issues that prevent students with intellectual disability from receiving transition services’ full benefits. Using different methods and sources of data collection assists researchers in identifying comparable themes and allows for significant triangulation (Glesne and Peshkin 1992, O’Donoghue and Punch 2004).

Data analysis

After the interviews were conducted and audio recorded, they were transcribed into Microsoft Word documents by an assistant researcher, who keyed them verbatim, chronologically. Next, transcripts were uploaded into the software program NVivo 10 to enable data coding. I used this software to read and review transcripts, make memos, and sort and assign data into coding categories (Glesne 2006). The next step consisted of rereading the transcripts, highlighting all significant words and phrases, and assigning each a code. After assigning codes, I identified related words and phrases by using the auto-coding feature across transcripts. Last, codes were grouped into categories to extract specific themes.

In addition to NVivo 10, another qualitative method called “member check” was used. Harper and Cole (2012, p. 1) state that member check is “primarily used in qualitative inquiry methodology and is defined as a quality control process by which a researcher seeks to improve the accuracy, credibility, and validity of what has been recorded during a research interview.” Thus, once the most significant themes were identified, two professors in qualitative research performed a member check on the data and, after making some adjustments, agreed that the themes (next section) identified by the researcher were accurate, valid, and credible.

Results

Issues and concerns

Although some transition services have been provided for Saudi students with intellectual disability, certain problems must be addressed to provide high quality transition services. From data analysis, four themes directly impacting students’ lives emerged, summarizing main issues in transition services: teacher preparation programs, transition services law, individualized transition plans, and collaborative practices. This section presents details of the four main themes.

Teacher preparation programs

Special education teachers are essential for achieving a successful transition program, and teacher preparation was a main theme both during observation of programs and in participant interviews. Teachers stated that during four years of special education study, none received a single class on transition services. Only two of the 11 recalled taking a transition services class as master’s students. Here are statements from the two teachers:

The first teacher stated:

I graduated from the oldest considered to be the best Department of Special Education [King Saud University] in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia a year ago, and still, to this very moment, their program does not offer [undergraduate] classes on transition services.

The other teacher explained:

The first time I heard about transition services, I was already a master’s student at King Saud University. Before that, I did not know anything about transition services. [The Department of Special Education] should offer this class for undergraduate students. Most special education teachers have a bachelor’s degree, so they have no opportunity to learn about transition services.

Additional results showed that although the Saudi General Administration of Public Education (GAPE) offers many courses and workshops for special education teachers, those on transition services are limited. One teacher’s questions are especially revealing:

I am really interested in learning more about transition services.… What is it exactly? And how do I make an Individualized Transition Plan for my students? Also how do I evaluate the plan? But unfortunately [GAPE] offer[s] very few courses and workshops about transition. Last year, they offered just one course and I could not register for it because it was full. How come one short course a year is enough for so many teachers in a big city like Riyadh?!

In short, teacher preparation programs in many public universities are weak on transition services because they simply offer no classes on the subject. Thus, teachers try to improve their knowledge about transition services by taking short GAPE courses. However, as interviewees indicate, these course are extremely limited.

Transition services law

During interviews, teachers were asked about their awareness of acts or regulations on transition services for students with disabilities in Saudi Arabia. Data showed that teachers had no knowledge about any such acts or regulations. They had only general awareness of general acts, for instance, the Disabled Education System, but no knowledge of specific acts and regulations on transition services. One teacher said, “All I know there is an act about how all students with disabilities have the right to learn just like students without disabilities.” Another admitted,

I have no idea about any acts.… I do not know, I do not remember whether I have heard about [acts] or studied that when I was in college. All I know is that we should take our students to get training in the last semester of high school.… That is all I know.

In brief, teachers know that all students with intellectual disability must receive vocational training during their last semester of high school. However, teachers do not have knowledge regarding regulations on transition services mentioned in the RGSE.

Individualized transition plan (ITP)

Data further showed that none of the teachers write ITPs for students and, in fact, some teachers even wondered what an ITP is. Although all teachers prepare their students’ IEPs, none include a section on transition services because: (1) they have no knowledge of ITP’s purpose or (2) those few with knowledge do not believe ITPs are necessary since few vocations offer training. One teacher with a master’s degree and ITP knowledge asked,

What is the point of having an ITP for each student?! At the end, all students are the same. They will all get their vocational training in the last semester of high school either at Panda or MacDonald’s. Let’s say a student wants to have an office job at a company. We can’t help him with [that] because this option is not available, so what is the point of writing an [individualized] transition plan for him?

Another teacher with a master’s degree argued,

I do agree with you that an ITP is important, and it is a big deal in developed countries like America, but the system here in Saudi Arabia is different. We are not there yet. We still have problems with other more important things that we have not resolved yet, like Individual Education Plans.

Therefore, most teachers of students with intellectual disability realize the significance of an ITP for each student. However, many believe that all students have only one or two options for vocational training. Thus, they see no point in writing ITPs because ITPs depend on each student’s strengths and interests, while the vocational training system pays no attention to strengths and interests.

Collaborative practices

A main theme was lack of collaboration between high schools and others with a significant transition role. More specifically, data showed a huge lack of connection and collaboration between high schools, families, and community businesses. For example, teachers have almost no connection with their students’ families, so teachers face difficulty writing ITPs because families do not want to participate in developing plans. Data made it obvious that families often like to leave this task for teachers to decide whatever they prefer. One teacher reported,

I have been a teacher for ten years, and I always try to contact families either by phone or email to get more information about their sons… like what he wants to do after graduation and what he does not like… [but] almost all of them [families] do not want to collaborate. They do not answer my calls and emails, and if they even answer my calls, they say, “We do not have time to meet” because they are busy at work.

As a result of families’ limited connection with schools, teachers become less interested in contacting and involving families, preferring to complete the task on their own. A teacher explained,

I stopped contacting families a long time ago because I got tired of families.… Families have no knowledge about transition services, and they do not believe that their children can rely on themselves and live independently in the future. This made me just want to do my job on my own.

Another facet of the problem is that schools have weak collaboration with community business agencies. Data showed that schools have no role in choosing businesses in which students are interested; currently, responsibility for this task lies only with GAPEs that form “partnership agreements” with community business agencies. By observation and based on teachers’ perspectives, most GAPEs form partnership agreements with only two big companies in Saudi Arabia, Panda (a grocery company) or MacDonald’s (a food company). However, this limited strategy is not working well because students need more available options for vocational training. One teacher exclaimed, “What if my student is not interested in working in a restaurant or a grocery store?!” Another asserted,

I do not like the fact that GAPE in Riyadh is the only one responsible for making partnership agreements. We [schools and/or teachers] should also have other options. We should be able to contact other businesses by ourselves, not only big companies. One of my students is interested in working at a coffee shop, but he has no choice but to work at Panda.

Another result was that some students with intellectual disability do not receive any mandated vocational training. Teachers in small towns or villages noted a lack of large grocery or restaurant businesses, making it difficult to find vocational training for their students. Consequently, students receive only academic services. A teacher commented,

I teach in a very small town. We do not have big businesses, or well-known grocery stores such as Panda, or restaurants. Worse, by law, we are not allowed to contact small businesses in our town to train our students because only [GAPE] makes this kind of arrangement.

In sum, collaboration and connections between schools and families in general and, specifically, in terms of transition services, are weak. Additionally, schools have limited numbers of community business agencies offering student training. Consequently, students with intellectual disability receive weak transition services of planning and practice.

Recommendations

Over the last two decades, Saudi Arabian special education services have improved, as reflected in increasing numbers of programs and services provided to students with disabilities, including transition services. However, transition services should be assessed as to application, output quality, and continued development (Alnahdi 2014). In discussing the study’s results, the following section provides recommendations on five themes: (1) special education teacher preparation programs, (2) transition services’ policies and regulations, (3) Individualized Transition Plans, (4) collaboration with others, and (5) students’ vocational internship system.

Special education teachers’ preparation programs

Study data showed that most special education teachers interviewed were not qualified to provide transition services to students with intellectual disability because they have almost no knowledge about the concept and its main components. Thus, it is highly recommended that special education teachers be educated and prepared to provide high quality- transition services, probably through the following two steps.

First, including competencies related to transition services in undergraduate special education teacher preparation programs is a must. According to interviewees and the researcher’s online investigation, no government universities offer transition services courses in undergraduate programs. Therefore, Saudi universities should update their special education teacher preparation programs to offer transition services courses to undergraduates. This would help teachers understand, for instance, the concept and the importance of transition services, how to deliver such services to students, and how to prepare ITPs for inclusion in IEPs.

Second, in-service special education teachers are in extreme need of courses and workshops on transition services. This is also an agreement with what Alruraini (2017) found in his study. This is a significant element because the majority of teachers have only a bachelor’s degree and thus have received no instruction about transitioning students. Such new instruction should focus on the entire concept of transition services—writing ITPs, and delivery and assessment of services.

Policies and regulations of transition services

In Saudi Arabia, the Department of Special Education, MOE, was established in 1962. However, not until 2001 were the first regulations for special education programs and institutes for Saudi students with disabilities initiated (Alnahdi 2016), that is, the RGSE. This regulatory guide mentioned nothing related to transition services in 2001, although it was mainly written based on acts and regulations for students with disabilities in the United States (Alquraini, 2019). In 2015, the RGSE was revised to include transition services. However, the revision is still limited because: (1) it does not include an official definition of transition services, (2) it mentions transition services only in a few lines, and (3) it does not explain how schools should deliver transition services according to regulations. Therefore, teachers cannot be blamed for having weak knowledge about transition service regulations. Finally, then, the MOE is highly recommended to issue specific and detailed transition services guidelines.

Individualized transition plans

Each student with an intellectual disability must have an ITP in his IEP, and it must be written based on the student’s needs, goals, and interests (Dean et al. 2019). Based on study results, however, teachers do not write ITPs because, as one teacher argued, “Students have only one or two options for their training, so no point in writing ITPs.” What none of the 11 teachers knew is that RGSE legally requires an ITP for each student. The RGSE contains a one-page form titled “transition plan” for teachers to use. Based on the interviews, we know, first, that teachers have little or no knowledge about transition services requirements and, second, supervisors internal or external to schools do not ask teachers to include an ITP in each student’s IEP. Therefore, all parties need to initiate and maintain implementation of RGSE requirements.

Collaboration with others

The results section reveals an obvious lack of collaboration among schools, families, and community business agencies. First, the relationship between schools and families is weak, at least partly because teachers contact families and ask merely one question: “Can you come to school to meet?” Therefore, teachers should try other methods of enhancing parents’ participation, perhaps by asking them to confer via video or phone calls. Another method could involve e-mailing parents specific questions. In short, teachers should try flexible methods of communication with families.

Another perspective shows that the relationship between schools and community business agencies is currently limited, but could be enhanced by the following. Most GAPEs have partnership agreements with only one or two community business agencies. Such limited options might work fine for some students, but not for others. Obviously, GAPEs need partnership agreements with a large and varied number of businesses because students have different work interests that should be fulfilled. Additionally, besides GAPE partnership agreements with large businesses, schools should be allowed, and even encouraged, to form partnership agreements with other businesses. Limiting students with intellectual disabilities to one or two types of vocational training—grocery work at Panda and food service at MacDonald’s—seems patently unfair. What if, according to an IEP goal, a student wishes to work in an office? Thus, GAPEs should encourage schools to form partnerships with a variety of businesses, large or small, to provide students’ more training options. In small towns that lack huge companies, of course, schools’ ability to form partnerships will enable students to obtain internships when they might not otherwise receive any vocational training at all.

Finally, here, partnerships with businesses must be effective and successful. Study data reveal that some businesses allow students to work but have no actual training program for them and that managers are not supervising students well. Consequently, some students spend their time doing nothing. GAPEs and/or schools should ensure that effective partnership agreements fully benefit students.

Students’ vocational training system

As mentioned previously, the Department of Special Education requires all public high schools to train students with intellectual disability vocationally only in the second semester of 12^th grade. In addition, students usually have only two choices of training, either in a grocery stories or a fast-food restaurant. Based on study results and comparison to vocational training in developed countries such as the United States, here are some suggestions for implementation in Saudi public high schools. Students with intellectual disability should receive transition services at least as soon as they turn 16 years old, for many studies have found (e.g. Dean et al. 2019, Almalky 2018, Cavendish and Connor, 2018 ) that the sooner students are trained vocationally, the better the result. The current Saudi vocational training system starts providing students transition services too late, around 18 years old. Furthermore, one semester of training is not sufficient for students to learn and gain experience in the work they want to do after graduation. For the benefit of students with intellectual disability, it is highly recommended that they begin their vocational training program as soon as they enter high school. Three years of training is a somewhat appropriate amount of time to gain important vocational and interpersonal skills.

Moreover, students should have vocational training two to three times a week beginning in the 10^th grade. This would provide two advantages: (1) helping an IEP team change or adjust the goals of a student’s transition plan as needed during high school. Certainly, some students select a job for after graduation but post-training, they might want to change that path. Thus, training students earlier, throughout high school, can provide opportunities for them to try different career paths instead of just one, late in the 12^th grade. (2) Earlier training can help students improve their work ethic, gain more vocational skills, work more hours, try different jobs, and improve social and language skills. Moreover, students with intellectual disability should be provided more vocational training options because, like anyone else, they differ in their goals, strengths, limitations, and interests. Therefore, schools should work on providing varied options, like working in a mechanic’s shop, in an office, or in any other position to which a student might reasonably aspire.

Finally, as in developed countries, a position of “transition coordinator” in Saudi high schools is essential. Among other duties, this coordinator supervises the writing of ITPs, leads interagency transition meetings, identifies transition services provided by community agencies, assists in planning and placement decisions, coordinates job coaches, and trains special education educators and employers to understand internees’ need for self-advocacy.

Conclusion

In Saudi Arabia, transition services were initiated for high school students with intellectual disability late in 2005 (Alquraini 2013). This means students with intellectual disability who graduated before 2005 received no transition services, while students who graduated after 2005 have received some transition services. During the last 15 years, very few studies investigated transition services but they have concluded that, for instance, limited transition services are provided in schools, services lack administrative support, and connections between schools and families need improvement (i.e. Alnahdi 2014, Alquraini 2017, Almalky 2018, Almalki et al. 2021). Thus, this study proposed to discover major issues and concerns regarding provided transition services from the perspectives of teachers of students with intellectual disability.

Based on results of interviewing 11 such teachers, four themes were described as main issues and concerns of currently provided transition services. The researcher explained these issues, followed by some recommendations for authorities, especially those in the Department of Special Education, MOE. In general, authorities should act immediately to enhance transition services for students with intellectual disability. Providing appropriate transition services will better qualify students to obtain a job and live independently. For authorities to adjust or redesign the structure of transition services now is relatively easy because the process is still in its beginning stages. It is highly recommended that authorities first rework the legal aspects of transition services because the quality of future services will be based on acts and regulations’ effectiveness. Furthermore, it is important for authorities to encourage schools to build strong, effective relationships with families by initiating new strategies. Schools and teachers also need the flexibility to provide transition services based on their students’ needs and interests. For instance, schools should have the right to form partnerships with businesses and agencies without specific MOE permission. Lastly, ITP is a main component in the field of transition; thus, authorities should ensure that each student with an intellectual disability must has an ITP in his IEP.

In conclusion, this study’s results cannot be generalized to the country’s entire transition program because only a small number of participants were included. Future studies should include more participants and use both quantitative and qualitative research methods to achieve more accurate, generalizable results. In addition, this study’s results are based only on the perspective of teachers. However, future studies should explore the perspectives of other parties with significant roles in transition services, such as families of students with intellectual disability and business agencies. This will allow comparison of provided transition services from different perspectives. Finally, this study concerns only transition services for students with intellectual disability, so it cannot be generalized to other disabilities.

Funding Statement

The author extends his appreciation to the Deputyship for Research & Innovation, “Ministry of Education” in Saudi Arabia for funding this research work through the project number IFKSURG-2020-138.

Disclosure of interest

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Ethics approval

All protocols were approved by the Institutional Review Board (IRB) – King Saudi University.