It is precisely because the Kingdom needs to invest in its young people, who are its future, that the plans for higher education announced in the eight five-year plan are so very welcome.
A further seven new universities are to be added to the existing eleven and no less than 50 new colleges of technology will be set up. These facilities will cover all major population centers. On paper, it is a far-sighted and ambitious program to expand the ranks of well-educated and highly skilled young people who will boost the Kingdom’s productivity capacity in future years.
But building these new centers of education is not by itself enough. Real educational rigor, by both students and lecturers, will be essential to create the kind of graduates the Kingdom needs. Our colleges and universities have already been producing, it could almost be said mass producing, graduates, who nevertheless are not finding ready places in the jobs market. Why should this be? Why is it that many Saudis who land good and challenging jobs here have first earned their degrees overseas at foreign universities?
It seems clear that a serious view needs to be taken of the quality of teaching and training. It would be tragic if this substantial expansion of the higher ed ucation system were also to expand past mistakes. Even though those responsible for education have a major job coping with the creation and staffing of these new establishments in the next five years, now seems to be the moment to take a tough look at syllabus and the qualifications system.
The very best universities are centers of excellence which attract the very best minds, both among teachers and undergraduates. Not every university can be an Oxford or Cambridge, a Harvard or a Yale but these institutions set the benchmark by which all other places of learning are judged. Higher education is a matter of aspiration and ambition. Three years of graduate study cannot be wasted, especially in a competitive world where success goes to the best qualified.
In both the US and the UK, universities have been undermined by the egalitarian notion that everyone deserves higher education and worse, ought to win some sort of a qualification at the end. Degrees and secondary education qualifications have therefore been devalued. Employers cannot use them as a true measure of applicants’ knowledge and abilities. Saudi educationalists therefore should be turning to experts in French, German or even Russian universities also to help them redefine university and technical college curricula to ensure that students and the Kingdom itself gains the greatest benefit from their education.
Saudi employers still often prefer to hire foreigners because they are better-educated , even though they would rather the job went to a Saudi. This is an indictment of the level of success enjoyed by our existing universities. Now is the time for major change. Saudi Arabia can well afford to give its students the very best facilities. What it cannot afford is to have students and their teachers failing to make the best of those facilities.
