ABHA, 20 February 2003 — Saudi students seeking higher education abroad are caught in a quandary.
Countries where they prefer to study will not admit them, while the Ministry of Education often does not recognize qualifications from the countries that will.
The ministry has released a list of over 800 universities it recognizes worldwide, but 500 of them are in the United States alone, with the rest in Britain, France, Germany, Austria and some Arab countries, according to Al-Majalla, a sister publication of Arab News.
Students are finding it hard to obtain study visas for the US after the Sept. 11 events.
Due to financial constraints, many students have appealed to the Ministry of Education to let them study at universities besides those in the US and western Europe.
“I graduated from high school with 90 percent average. All my attempts to do a medical course in the Kingdom failed,” said Waleed Al-Sulaiman, a 20-year-old student. “Admissions staff said my average was weak and I could not be admitted to medical college. Afterward I went to an engineering college where they told me the same thing. I went to another college to do accountancy, but I had missed the deadline for admission.
“In my frustration I went to my father and begged him to send me abroad to study. At first, he rejected the idea saying it was too expensive. But I told him there are places other than England and America. I told him about countries where the cost of living is less than here, such as the Czech Republic.
“My father finally agreed and I went to the Ministry of Education only to find out that not all East European universities are recognized. The idea of studying in Eastern Europe came from a foreign doctor who studied there and worked in one of our hospitals,” he said.
Sultan Al-Amri, another student, was unable to get into university here because of his 79 percent high school average. “I thought of studying abroad, preferably at an Indian university because India is very advanced in computing,” he said. “And education is cheap there.”
However, the Ministry of Higher Education told him it recognized no Indian university and advised him to look at the list of approved universities.
“I went to India anyway and now I am studying at Pune University,” he says. Tuition there is $1000 a year.
“I am hoping that by the time I graduate, the ministry will review its list and recognize famous Indian universities, especially when Europe and America are no longer a good choice for Saudi students,” Al-Amri said.
Saudi academic Dr. S. Al-Kahtani said Saudi students lack guidance from the elementary stage. “No one bothers about the student’s talents or his academic taste. This has cost many Saudis dearly,” he said.
He added that the ministry approved only “aristocratic” universities that many Saudis students could not afford.
He was surprised that many Asian universities were not recognized. “There is a contradiction here, because most doctors, electrical engineers and computer engineers and nurses working in Saudi Arabia are Asians with Asian university degrees.
“The ministry should allow students to study elsewhere. When they graduate they can be given a test here to make sure that they measure up to our standards,” he added.
Dr. Khalid Al-Sultan, assistant director at the Ministry of Higher Education, said the ministry was about to release a revised list containing new universities, allowing more students to study in good international universities.
