Challenges Faced by Female Students of High School in Learning National Social Studies Curriculum in Saudi Arabia

The purpose of the study is to assess the challenges faced by female students of high school in learning the national social studies (NSS) curriculum in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia (KSA). Conducting this study is informed by curricular change in KSA, as a way of addressing labour market demand and economic development. In this study, a method approach was used to collect the data needed to answer the research questions.  Questionnaires were used to collect data from female students. Questionnaire data was analysed using SPSS software. The findings showed that the changes in the NSS curriculum have affected the content, material, activities and evaluation used in learning, and that the public school sector is struggling with the implementation of the new curriculum. Public schools do not have an adequate level of support and resources required to effectively implement the curriculum. The area of the new curriculum that did rank highly was the evaluation method in the curriculum because of the inclusion of formative evaluation in the overall performance assessment. The activities recommended in the curriculum, teaching methods employed and the recognised text-books also ranked high according to this study. The high issues were resource availability, time limitation, repetition of content and class environment. These have an observable negative effect on the implementation of the NSS curriculum. The researcher suggests recommendations to alleviate these challenges.