DHAHRAN, 27 May 2003 — Businessmen and industry experts often ask about the relevance of the Saudi education system for the growth and development of industry. Several seminars across the country have emphasized the need for a realistic approach to Saudization.
Technocrats and academics alike feel that the present education system is in need of an overhaul to become more relevant to present-day requirements. Only then, they believe, can Saudization succeed.
The national budget allocates SR57.5 billion for the education sector, more than 25 percent of the total annual expenditure of SR209 billion. Such a huge outlay for education reflects the desire of the government to provide quality education in order to fulfill the requirements of the national industry and businesses.
Custodian of the Two Holy Mosques King Fahd, commenting on the budgetary provisions has said: “In the last budget the education sector was allocated funds for the construction of hundreds of schools and a large number of colleges for boys and girls. Supplementary to this program, we have now allocated in the new budget SR57.5 billion for the education sector.”
In the past 10 years, the education sector in the Kingdom has expanded in leaps and bounds. Its growth reflects the country’s march toward industrialization and modernization. The country has six universities boasting international standards and conforming to the requirements of national trade and industry. In addition there are more than two dozen vocational colleges around the Kingdom. There are also institutions for professional studies like the Institute of Public Administration.
Are present curricula relevant to market needs? Are Kingdom’s universities and colleges preparing students to take over from foreign workers and executives? Is the present education system capable of international competition in trade and industry?
These are the questions often debated by experts and businessmen in the country. But results remain elusive. One thing they do agree on is that there is a lack of communication between industrial experts and educators. “There has to be a constant dialogue between the education sector and experts from trade and industry in order to understand the market requirements. There has got to be a continuous feedback from the market,” says Saleh Al-Humaidan, managing director of the Al-Youm group of publications, who also teaches business management at the King Fahd University of Petroleum and Minerals.
“The relevance or irrelevance of education is a very subjective issue, but the truth is that we have to have more higher educational institutions like KFUPM in the country,” said Abdul Aziz Al-Qahtani, chairman of the Qahtani group of companies in Dammam.
In the Eastern Province there are two universities, KFUPM, the only one of its kind in the GCC, and King Faisal University (KFU) which is a more conventional institution. KFU provides medical education as well as architectural engineering and town planning. In addition to these, KFU also has conventional disciplines in its curricula.
But KFUPM is unique in its structure as well as curricula. It specializes in engineering and produces hundreds of graduates every year in civil, electrical, mechanical, computer, petroleum and chemical engineering. It also has a prestigious business management faculty. It is for this reason that every year on the occasion of KFUPM’s Career Day many blue-chip companies send their top executives to catch the budding talent.
Experts say that interaction between employees and employers on the one hand and educational institutions on the other plays a pivotal role in the growth of both the national industry and the educational institutions.
Such interaction is not confined to KFUPM. King Abdul Aziz University in Jeddah and King Saud University in Riyadh also organize an annual get-together, and businessmen and industrialists as well as students find this gathering a fruitful and productive event.
“The confidence between Saudi Aramco and KFUPM speaks of its high standard in education and its relevance to the present industrial expansion in the country,” said Abdul Aziz Kanoo, deputy chairman of the Kanoo group of companies in Saudi Arabia. The problem is that there is only one such institution in the country and hundreds and hundreds of students vie to get admission. “We have to have more institutions on the pattern of KFUPM so that more talent could get an opportunity to get exposure and receive quality education,” added Kanoo.
The market requirement is not just for top executives but also for technicians, clerks, accountants, secretaries, welders, plumbers, electricians, masons, fitters and teachers. These are the people who make the program and policies of the technocrats a reality. They are the basis for industrialization, and most of the positions are still occupied by foreign workers.
Putting Saudis in top management or Saudizing limousine drivers and vegetable vendors cannot achieve Saudization. It is more important to train and educate Saudis to take over positions in-between in trade and industry. Saudization has to come from the grassroots level. But the grassroots are not drivers and vegetable vendors alone but, more crucially, people with the technical skills to drive industry in the Kingdom.
