IN light of the stringent conditions and limited opportunities to get enrolled at Saudi universities, many parents look for wastas (intermediaries) to register their sons and daughters who have graduated from secondary school.
Parents seek wastas after a new rule was made that anyone with grades less than 80 percent cannot go to university. These students constitute about 60 percent of the secondary school graduates in most of the Kingdom’s regions.
Can you imagine a Saudi citizen looking for a wasta to send his son or daughter to a government-run university at his own expense? It is also funny that some admission officials proudly speak about the availability of opportunities at “symbolic charges.” In fact, such students pay more than what science and engineering students in neighboring countries pay.
It is astonishing to suddenly hear, as universities announce they have no more spaces left, about vacant seats for those who are willing to pay.
We never hear about students paying tuition in government-run universities in poor countries. We also never hear about universities in oil-producing countries, such as Saudi Arabia — which spends a quarter of its budget on education and allocates more than SR20 billion to universities — bargaining with students and trading in education.
University lecturers, officials and the ministry should know that the majority of students enrolled on paid-up programs are the sons and daughters of poor Saudi citizens who have no intermediaries to help them get into to university free of charge. These very people are unable to send them abroad to study at their own expense.
Just imagine a retiree or a limited income employee or someone who lives on social security cutting the amount he spends on children’s food to pay university fees. Imagine a widow selling her jewelry to do the same.
You would then feel the pain, blame yourself, and feel what you are doing is shameful — something that undermines the position of educational institutions and harms the efforts of the government, which is doing its best to help citizens prosper.
