Impressive economic reforms and attractive investment opportunities led the World Bank to rate Saudi Arabia as the Arab world’s best investment environment and rank it 23rd globally.
Great news, but there is perhaps a more important investment we need to make in the Kingdom, and that is an investment in our human resources and our youth. We should make it our priority to develop our educational, social and cultural institutions in order to groom our young to become contributing citizens who can share in the progress and development of their country.
We need to pay more attention to the welfare of our young generation, which constitutes 70 percent of our population. They will be our future leaders, and we cannot afford to miss the opportunity to develop their abilities and enhance their potential to do more than survive in the highly competitive 21st century.
The government allocated a large budget for the education sector, and the Ministry of Education announced ambitious plans to upgrade our education system. Unfortunately, very little has been accomplished, and our education is still inadequate as evidenced by its poor ratings internationally. The academic performance of our students continues to lag because our children are devoid of appropriate language skills; they lack adequate computer knowledge, and subjects that promote critical thinking are nonexistent in our school curriculum.
Officials in the Ministry of Education must realize that we are out of step with global education trends that have become interactive, collaborative and accessible through the creative nature of the cyber world. Our students need to be taught to communicate with the rest of the world now, and our outdated curriculum cries out for revision. These are issues that need to be addressed, and immediate action should be taken to implement these much-needed educational reforms.
Resistance to change is another obstacle delaying social and cultural reform. There is an urgent need to transform the Bedouin culture of rigid thinking into a modern one by providing intellectual and social stimuli. The initiatives of the national dialogue, the media, international conferences and symposiums may be great attempts to influence progress and change; however, they are not enough because they only target a minority while the rest of the population is fed antiquated ideas and an extremist ideology that contradicts the true Islam that is moderate and tolerant.
There is also a significant segment of our young people that is uninspired and opts to be indifferent rather than making the important difference knowledge and motivation bring. Whether it is technological advancement or global and national efforts to protect the environment, a missing ingredient is enthusiasm, which comes in part from self-confidence in one’s ability to compete. A more aggressive awareness campaign needs to be launched on a national scale to replace old social norms with progressive ways to reshape the mindset of our youth.
We should collectively revive our values and work ethic and rid our society of the menaces of corruption, hypocrisy and greed. We must seek out our many heroes and promote the talented and the bright. Let us strive to promote the culture of professionalism and handwork in our society. It is important to encourage the search for excellence in every company and every organization. Research and evaluation should be regular tools to develop our products and improve our services.
King Abdullah outlined our country’s strategic goal to develop a knowledge-based society. Let us hope we can qualify our graduates to become researchers, scientists, engineers and technicians and make this dream come true. But truth requires truth, and if we continue to try and block the realities of the rest of the world, a knowledge-based society will remain a dream and give us a nightmarish reality instead.
The entrepreneurial spirit also needs to be supported and encouraged for our economic development.
Unfortunately, there is not enough genuine community support for our young entrepreneurs. We need to create a support system that would involve lawyers, bankers, financiers and investment companies to guide our young businessmen toward success. We also need a level-playing field where business plans succeed or fail on their own merits and not because of favoritism or obstruction. Eliminating bureaucracy and red tape in order to encourage innovative ideas and promote business enterprises among the younger generation is a necessary prerequisite.
Our leaders and policymakers need to be held accountable for failures and misguided policies that impede progress and development. They need to be more efficient and focused with decisions that affect the future of our young men and women. We must not continue to stagnate and allow our societal rigidity, incompetence and complacency to steal the chances for a prosperous future. Remember, most children in the developing nations already learn the skills for success while we continue to debate the wisdom of change. We already pay, and will continue to pay, a great price if we fail to accelerate the pace of reform and implement effective initiatives for a better tomorrow.
Our society today is at a crossroads, and change has become inevitable. However, we must make it a change for the better and not allow old traditions to lead us back into a desert of ignorance and poverty. Investing in our youth is a guaranteed way to achieve economic and social prosperity — simply talking about investing in our youth is not.
To succeed we must start modernizing our society and replacing obsolete and irrelevant customs with fact-based and creative ideas to accelerate our national development and give our children everything they need to succeed.
— Samar Fatany is a Saudi radio journalist based in Jeddah.
