Only 5 percent Saudis study engineering

A total of 50 percent of 101,700 Saudi graduates in the 2010/2011 academic year took Islamic studies, humanities, and business management majors. This was a 12 percent rise from the previous academic year, a study on education trends has revealed.
"About 37 percent of the graduates at Saudi universities specialized in humanities and Islamic studies in the 2010/2011 year. There were 19,600 humanities and 18,000 Islamic studies graduates," the study said.
In third position, business administration attracted 12,800 graduates during the period, accounting for 13 percent of the total. About 3 percent of Saudi university graduates preferred media studies during the period.
There was a 60 percent increase in graduates between the 2009/2010 and 2010/2011 academic years, because of the rise in graduates specializing in business administration and Islamic studies, it said.
A total of 61,800 women, accounting for 61 percent of the total, graduated in 2010/2011, with men making up 39,900, or 39 percent of the total. A further 25 percent of women graduated in humanities, 18 percent in Islamic studies, and 11 percent in social and behavioral studies.
Only 153 women graduated in engineering, accounting for 0.2 percent of the total, 2 percent took up media and journalism, and 5 percent health sciences. A total of 8,700 women graduated in social and behavioral sciences.
It also said 6,200 men graduated with degrees in health sciences, making up 6 percent of the total in that year.
Physics graduates made up 6 percent, informatics and teacher training 5 percent, followed by mathematics at 4.2 percent. There were 4,200 mathematics graduates in that year.
A total of 4,800 graduated in engineering, representing 5 percent of all graduates, including 1,049 architectural and construction engineers, and 3,300 life sciences engineers.
Graduates in majors such as law, social services, arts, education, personal services, agriculture and fishing, downstream industries, environment protection, veterinary medicine, and transport services made up less than one percent of graduates, the study said.