"The German universities and technical institute will be able to showcase what they could offer to Saudi students who may want to study in our country,” Thorsten Clausing, German Embassy counselor, told Arab News on Wednesday.
The universities include the Jacobs University of Bremen, Leipzig Business School, University of Magdeburg, and Frankfurt School of Finance & Management as well as the Technical University of Munich.
The German Academic Exchange Service, the umbrella organization of German universities and technical institutes, will also be participating and will have its own booth during the exhibition.
Clausing, who holds a doctorate degree in economics from Leipzig Business School, said that German participation in the international education conference would be a good opportunity for the participants to showcase the high-quality education they offer.
“Proof of this is the fact that a former Saudi health minister and now ambassador in Berlin studied in Germany,” he said, referring to Dr. Osama Shobokshi, who is now the Kingdom's ambassador to Germany.
That Germany is a “veritable center of learning” is bolstered by the famous thinkers Wilhelm von Humboldt, Albert Einstein, Georg Wilhelm Hegel and Max Karl Ernest Ludwig Planck. They laid the foundations for Germany's reputation as a land of scholars and country of thinkers and poets.
Humboldt was a statesman and philosopher, Einstein was a theoretical physicist who developed the theory of general relativity, Hegel was a philosopher and one of the creators of German Idealism, and Planck was a physicist and regarded as a founder of quantum theory.
Clausing said at present there are some 700 Saudi students in Germany taking up various courses. As a center of learning, Germany is strong in medicine, engineering and economics.
Clausing noted that under the King Abdullah Scholarship Program, Saudi students intending to study in his country should learn its language for two years before they leave the Kingdom because many of the courses are being taught in German.
“However, there's an alternative way for Saudis intending to study in Germany. Some of the courses are now being taught in English. They could go there and study without studying the German language first,” he said.
He added that if Saudi students are considering studying in Germany, the German Academic Exchange Service (DAAD) is the organization to turn to for further information and support. It is an association with all German universities and certain student organizations as its members.
In honoring former Saudi students in Germany, a reunion is being held annually at the German Embassy. Invited students to this gathering is selected and it's not uncommon to hear them speak fluent German.
“Last month, a reunion was also held. Ambassador Dieter Haller, who is out of the Kingdom but expected to arrive in two weeks' time, invited selected former Saudi students in Germany to attend. It was indeed a walk down memory lane for them,” said Clausing, who assumed his post in the Kingdom in 2010.
He said the forthcoming international education conference would also be one way of making bilateral ties stronger. Germany is one of the major trading partners of the Kingdom. Bilateral trade in the first half of 2010 crossed SR32 billion and in the first quarter of 2011 it touched SR18 billion.
