RIYADH: Minister of Higher Education Dr. Khaled Al-Anqari met Wednesday with Jo Ritzen, president of Maastricht University in the Netherlands, to discuss issues relating to education. Dutch Ambassador Ron Strikker was also present at the meeting.
“We are committed to the quality course, and one way of doing it is by having an exchange program with other universities with different rankings,” Al-Anqari told Ritzen, who spoke during the opening ceremony last Tuesday on behalf of the participating universities.
The rankings referred to are the Times Higher Education World University Rankings and The Academic Ranking of World Universities compiled by Shanghai Jiao Tong University.
Al-Anqari also expressed appreciation that the universities participating in the International Exhibition for Higher Education belong to the world’s top 200 universities.
“These are the universities which we really like to relate to,” he said.
Four top Dutch universities are participating in the exhibition — University of Groningen, Maastricht University, University of Utrecht and Leiden University. These are ranked among the world’s top 100 universities.
Ritzen said: “It’s noticeable that the Kingdom has been creating an upward spiral for quality Saudi students and this has been improving every year.”
He said that this is indeed a big challenge and one way of doing it is through a program in which a Saudi university could have an exchange of students with other universities.
“When Saudi students come back to the Kingdom, they won’t only be good educators but good leaders in society as well,” Ritzen said.
He cited the example of South Korea in the 1970s when it sent its students abroad to study and when they went back, they not only became leaders in education but also in other fields.
Strikker, on the other hand, extended an invitation on behalf of the Dutch education minister for Al-Anqari to visit the Netherlands. The envoy said that bilateral relationship between the two countries in education has been growing, as can be seen by the large number of Saudi students studying there.
“Happy students are happy in the Netherlands. They adapt quickly and they get a lot of attention from the universities where they are enrolled,” Strikker said.
He also said that the University of Groningen and Hail University have signed an agreement to collaborate in the field of education.
The agreement was signed by Dr. Ahmad Al-Saif, rector of Hail University, and Dr. Jan Borleffs, dean of education at the University of Groningen.
Under the agreement which takes effect next month, Hail University will send its students for postgraduate studies and teachers for training to the University of Groningen.
The University of Groningen will also extend technical cooperation, provide publications in various fields and share expertise in areas where it is strong such as medicine.
“We are happy to have an agreement with Hail University. We are in a position to share our expertise in the field of medical education as well as in biotechnology. We also welcome collaboration with other Saudi universities like King Saud University,” said Borleffs.
