RIYADH, 24 January 2003 — The Ministry of Finance and National Economy has allocated SR40 million for the proposed College of Languages and Translation (COLT) on King Saud University (KSU) campus here.
Addressing a press conference here on Wednesday, Dr. Abdullah Hamad Al-Homiedan, dean of the College of Languages and Translation at KSU, said the new college, the first educational facility of its kind in the world, will have e-classrooms equipped with audio-visual teaching aids, and Internet and Intranet facilities.
The smart classrooms, part of the ambitious project currently in the designing stage, will also serve as the offices of teachers, he said.
Al-Homiedan said the project will occupy a large built-in area to house nearly 150 smart classrooms and other amenities. Presently, the COLT has the highest enrollment in the Gulf states with over 4,500 students pursuing courses in 10 languages.
Of these 30 percent are studying English language alone. The other languages include French, German, Spanish, Italian, Russian, Turkish, Persian, Japanese and Hebrew.
Al-Homiedan said COLT was never reluctant to introduce new languages at the college. COLT has asked for permission from the relevant authorities to add Swahili and Housa to its program, he added.
He blamed lack of interest on the part of Indian and Pakistani governments for the dropping of plans to teach Urdu at the university though the academic council had given greenlight to it.
Al-Homiedan said COLT has agreed with several Iranian and Turkish universities to forge closer cooperation to teach Persian and Turkish at the center. Under agreements yet to be signed, these universities will depute five Turkish and six Iranian teachers to COLT. He said the Iranian and Turkish universities have also agreed to launch joint research programs in cooperation with COLT.
