JEDDAH, 12 February 2006 — Ian Bremmer, president of the Eurasia Group in the US, delivered a sharp analysis of the need for technical and entrepreneurial education in the Kingdom and the developing world.
He linked the need for Saudi Arabia to diversify its economy, upward pressure of booming population growth and the vital need for technical education.
Using the US example, he opined that teaching entrepreneurship at an early age is a major factor in developing business attitude and awareness of business skills.
He pointed to the “How America Works” program, which teaches business skills by involving 14 to 18-year-olds in founding and running businesses while still in school.
“Combined with the consumerist culture,” he said, “the graduate has a good understanding of entrepreneurship.” The downside is that children see less of their parents.
“The upside is the culture of entrepreneurship that comes from education and the belief in opportunities. It creates a very optimistic outlook,” said Bremmer.
He said that 39 percent of Americans believed they were or would be in the top one percent of earners in the country. He felt that this attitude stemmed from the strong education in entrepreneurship that existed throughout the US. Even if it were wrong headed it also staved off a certain level of social discontent in the country.
“To stave of long-term instability, education has to be the highest priority,” he said.
Stable income from oil and increasing population in Saudi Arabia meant that per capita income would drop unless something was done to diversify the economy.
“Education in Saudi Arabia is probably more critical than in any other country in the region for the stability and survivability of this regime,” he said.
If the Kingdom was looking to develop the capacity and expectations for developing young Saudis to take on employment or to develop a real middle class, Bremmer said he thought that broadening the technical expertise was absolutely critical.
“The amount of control and influence that exists away from the technical side in terms of religious institutions in education in this society is greater than is required to fulfill those expectations,” he said.
He stressed that he was not opposed to religious education at all. “However, religious education to the extent that it actually takes away from technical skills that are required (to be) a functional member of an increasingly globalized society, is disastrous for the next generation of Saudi men and women,” he said.
Limited education and facilities was a problem not unique to the Arab world. Bremmer gave the example of India, which, at best, provided world-class engineering and technical education.