I have studied in an American university where one of its rules prohibits graduates from teaching in the same university. This policy was developed with an aim of preventing graduates from repeating to their students those things that they were taught themselves.

The fear was that this would then lead to a boring and dull learning environment. The university believed in renewing its methods and techniques through different teaching skills and having new academics. Hiring graduates from other universities created a colorful, advanced and open atmosphere that brings about different experiences into the university. Many Americans approve and praise this policy. They believe that there are many vital advantages to this system.

I remembered the university’s philosophy while watching King Abdullah’s program for scholarships. The Ministry of Higher Education announced the names of 5,102 students who were accepted for scholarships in a number of countries. Included among these students were post-graduate students. This ambitious program reflects the awareness and realization there is for diversity in information and knowledge in addition to a sense of vitality.

People who criticize and defame the scholarship programs and succeed in having authorities listen to them by reducing the number of students given scholarships outside the Kingdom harm us in many ways. Their irrational interference has lessened the diverse type of learning and eliminated the development of education in the Kingdom, especially since some of our universities recently expanded in higher education programs when their graduates joined the faculty and ended up being clones of their teachers — the results of which we are all very familiar with.

For this particular reason I believe that creating an intensive program for exchange of visits between our local universities would enrich our learning techniques. Teachers from one university can teach classes at a different university and vice versa. It would be even more exciting and beneficial if the same program could be applied to foreign universities. Even the most distinguished universities abroad always make sure they have visiting faculty members from different countries around the world with unique degrees and qualifications.

In US universities, for instance, a large number of Arab, Asian and European academics exist. America doesn’t feel ashamed or less educated when it announces its need for the expertise of foreign academics and teachers. And I’m not saying that we should necessarily Americanize teaching vacancies like some third world countries do.

It would be amazing if the Saudi scholarship program could adapt this vision. Getting into the field of advanced contemporary knowledge and education requires exposure to other worlds.