Progress Amid Resistance

KUWAIT 235Kuwaiti women may enter freely into business and financial contractsand activities at all levels without the permission of a male family member.All Kuwaitis over 21 years of age may conduct any commercial activity inKuwait provided that they are not affected by a personal legal restriction,such as a criminal record. In recent years, women have been increasinglywilling to start their own businesses and gain economic independence.According to Article 40 of the constitution, all Kuwaiti citizens areguaranteed free and equal access to the education system from primaryschool through university, and male and female students are provided withequal opportunities to study abroad. Women have made significant gainsin education over the past three decades, and the percentage of young literatewomen in Kuwait is now equal to that of young literate men.Women do not face any extraordinary obstacles in attending universitiesor enrolling in diverse courses of study, and they graduate at higher ratesthan men. At Kuwait University, however, female students are requiredto maintain significantly higher grade-point averages (GPAs) than menin order to be admitted into selected fields. For instance, female studentsmust have a 3.3 GPA to be admitted to the engineering department, whilemale students need only a 2.8 GPA. As women comprise almost two-thirdsof Kuwaiti university students, the disparity in admission requirements isofficially justified as positive discrimination intended to increase the percentageof male students in certain academic fields. 24 Women outnumbermen at the institutions of higher education in Kuwait largely because menoften choose to pursue their degrees abroad.A decade-old debate regarding segregation of postsecondary schoolshas recently resurfaced in the National Assembly. A 2000 law institutinggender segregation in private postsecondary schools remains unenforced,in part due to the inherently high costs associated with such an endeavor.However, in January 2008 the minister of higher education announcedthat the law would be implemented. This has left the National Assemblydivided as liberal members call for the law to be rescinded or amendedwhile conservative members push for its strict enforcement. 25 A similarlaw applicable to public postsecondary schools was enacted in 1996 andenforced in 2001, but because Kuwait University is the country’s onlypublic university, fewer logistical constraints existed to affect its implementation.In debating whether to segregate private universities, manyhave questioned whether men and women will receive equal educations