Education in Saudi Arabia

Education

King Abdul Aziz University in Jeddah

The first academic year started in 1967 when 68 male and 30 female students were enrolled to the preparatory program in the University. A separate campus for women was established at the University in accordance with the Islamic norms. www.kaau.edu.sa/

KAAU building

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Students receive a salary....
As an incentive, the government began paying each student a monthly salary, about $267., this continues today. And because so many students, wanted to attend college, the government sent thousands of them to the US, Britain, Italy and any other countries the student was interested in, ALL on scholarship. The students got (and continue to get) allowances for, housing, families living with them, ALL medical expenses, books and travel to and from their college EVERY YEAR! I have a brother-in-law who spent 15 years in California while getting his PhD in geophysics, every penny being paid for by the government. Of course each student must give back two years (not sure of that number!) for every one that the student got from the government, then they can work privately.
But with the economy situation I fear that we will hear that this will be stopped. Right now there is still only ONE public college in Jeddah and with around 10,000 seats for men and women, there are applicants of about 18-22,000 applying every year!! Private colleges are a new thing in Saudi and several have opened, they are just as expensive as any other private college!

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My daughters kindergarten class, my picture.

Computer class

www.arabiancamelot.com/arabiatoday/at-026.jpg

The Saudi Arabian education system is constantly modernizing it's programs from the first grade through it's post-graduate classes.

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Since the 1920s, a small number of private institutions has offered limited secular education for boys, but it
was not until 1951 that an extensive program of publicly funded secondary schools was initiated. In 1957 the
first university not dedicated to religious subjects, Riyadh University, subsequently renamed King Saud
University, was established. The Ministry of Education, which administered public educational institutions for
boys and men, was set up in 1954. Publicly funded education for girls began in 1960 under the inspiration of
then Crown Prince Faisal and his wife Iffat.
By 1989 Saudi Arabia had an education system with more than 14,000 education institutions, including seven
universities and eleven teacher-training colleges, in addition to schools for vocational and technical training,
special needs, and adult literacy. The system was expanding so rapidly that in 1988-89 alone, 950 new
schools were opened to accommodate 400,000 new students.
The concern was compounded by the fact that women as a group have excelled academically over males in
secondary schools, and the number of female graduates has outstripped the number of males.
http://reference.allrefer.com/country-guide-study/saudi-arabia/saudi-arabia44.html

For a better understanding of the Saudi Arabian education system please read the full article!!

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The Saudi Government maintains schools all over the world for college students who study outside and have their families with them.

The Saudi Arabian Learning Center (SALC) in Columbus, Ohio www.christa.coe.ohio-state.edu/fryan.1/profile.htm

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When my daughter began college there were only 7,000 seats available in the girls' university of Jeddah, and 35,000 girls seeking a seat (from around the kingdom) so we had to look for another way. We finally enrolled her in a new private, girls trade school. International College of Business, the center building on the left (picture on left) and the entrance. my pictures

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Formal primary education began in Saudi Arabia in the 1930s. By 1945, King Abdul Aziz Bin Abdul Rahman Al-Saud, the country's founder, had initiated an extensive program to establish schools in the Kingdom.

As part of its efforts to make education available to Saudi students residing abroad, the Kingdom has established three educational institutions in the United States, Britain and Germany. Students attend kindergarten through 12th grade at these schools, receiving instruction in Islam and the Arabic language, in addition to the regular curriculum.

www.saudiembassy.org.uk/photo-gallery/education.htm

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January 5, 2004, The New Yorker "The Kingdom of Silence"

“If you were trying to point young reporters to one story that could shake the country, what would it be?” I asked him.
“Sewage,” he said emphatically.

Twenty years ago, Shobokshi told me, Jeddah had been provided with the money to build a modern sewage system that would accommodate the fast-growing city. The government official in charge of the project, however, took the money and built himself a mansion in San Francisco and a palace in Jeddah that is equipped with a discothèque and a bowling alley.

As a result, Shobokshi said, the streets in Jeddah are constantly filled with tanker trucks to drain the city’s cesspools. Worse, sewage has got mixed into Jeddah’s groundwater, and this has contaminated drinking water in many parts of the city. “We have new diseases of the eye and skin that didn’t exist here ten years ago,” Shobokshi said. “Lung and breast cancers are forty per cent above the national rate. Hepatitis is so high that it has to be classified as an epidemic. Marine biologists tell me that certain fishes have become extinct because of the overflow.”

http://www.newyorker.com/fact/content/?040105fa_fact2

April, 2006: The new Batergie Nursing College for women, so far it is a FREE educational college as Mr. Batergie's contribution to his country and for women's education.