Focus on Ireland: A Saudi success story in Ireland

Athlone, situated 150 km west of Dublin on the River Shannon, deep in rural Ireland, is not China, but it is a first-class center of technical education. The culture shock for Saudi students who have made it their home was real on arrival, but a year or so on the shock has faded into comfort as they discovered Irish culture and rapidly improved their language skills.
It has attracted young Saudis studying abroad on the King Abdullah Scholarship Program who have been warmly welcomed by and integrated into the local community. Such is their attachment to the area and their new neighbors that when the floods of last winter roiled through the town, the students were knee-deep in freezing water manning the barricades and filling sandbags to hold back the deluge.
AIT was founded in 1970 and upgraded to an institute in 1998. It offers a wide variety of undergraduate and postgraduate courses.
AIT President Ciarán Ó Catháin has taken an objective yet positive view of the Saudi students. “They know what we expect of them and we are clear what they expect of us,” he said. “Their academic progress is very tightly monitored and so far they are working really well.”
Two members of staff continually liaise with the students and deal with their academic or day-to-day issues. 
“From our side, it’s culturally very good to have people from the Muslim world coming in and seen as ‘normal,’” said Ó Catháin. “And that’s very beneficial for the Muslim community worldwide as well.”
Ó Catháin told the story of a shopkeeper in the town who broke his heels and ankles in an accident. He said that one of the Saudi students, Latif, shuttled the accident victim back and forth to hospital the whole winter and often helped out in his shop.
 “He (the accident victim) said to me later that if I had told him he would have had a Muslim at his Christmas dinner table this year, he would have told me that I was off my head!” said Ó Catháin.
AIT has a close interest in the Technical and Vocational Training Corporation (TVTC) program in Saudi Arabia and over the coming years looks to expand into the Kingdom. In the foreseeable future, Ó Catháin said he hopes to open a joint AIT/ Waterford/Galway institutes office in Riyadh. Already AIT has received inquiries to run a new technical college in Jeddah.
A meeting with the students rapidly turned into a lively and friendly majlis. Ali Al-Shehri, who studies computer engineering and runs the Saudi student group’s website, said that most students had chosen Ireland as a result of considerable research among a wide set of possibilities worldwide.
 “I think I ended up here because for the first time I have been lucky,” he said. “It has been a great combination of place, people, safety and subjects. It has its challenges, but here from the first moment you arrive you receive a very warm welcome.”
The rest of the group readily agreed.
Most of the current students at AIT came with their families, some with children who attend local primary schools to be fully immersed in learning English. None had encountered any cultural difficulty.
With two children, aged 12 and 13, in local schools, construction security and management student Hisham Shahata was one of the older members of the group.
“Last year they (Shahata’s children) spent learning English, but this year they are taking every subject,” he said.
Both cultures place family at the center of daily activity. This, said Saudi students, was reflected in the support and acceptance that they encountered from the community.
There was though a predictable challenge: “The weather — it’s very different from that in Jeddah. But the people here are very warm,” he said.
Recently arrived mechanical engineering student Abdulaziz Hussein lives with his wife and four children in Athlone.
“My children could not speak English too well, but after one and a half months here they are catching up fast,” he said.
Asked if they had had a similar experience, the group who had children with them agreed and all were definite that the earlier they began to learn English, the better it was. The quality and style of education at AIT was, thought one-year veteran Ateef Al-Kathiri, very different from Saudi Arabia.
“It’s hard work, but it’s more interesting. I have missed many things from home, but the staff here make extra classes and help us a lot.”
While they had the self-motivation to apply for scholarship to seek education abroad there was, said Ó Catháin, the added motivation that should they finally fail to meet the clearly defined standards expected, they would have to pay the money back.
“There has been only one who faltered, but after some extra help and repeat of a course, he got through,” he said. “The scheme is working well, the students have integrated well and it really is a Saudi success story.”