Khalid Al-Wabel
SIX Saudi universities rejected the job applications of 200 Saudis who hold PhD degrees in different majors while the same universities announced 851 job openings for non-Saudis. This news appeared in Al-Watan daily.
Despite the fact that we have Saudi citizens with strong PhD degrees, most of our universities prefer to hire non-Saudis, some of whom are graduates from mediocre universities.
I do not understand how a Saudi with a PhD degree can be unemployed. I find it hard to believe. What exactly has gone wrong in our country? Some people say that Saudis are lazy, but this is not true. Those Saudis with PhD degrees traveled abroad, stayed up late studying and researching and were awarded prestigious degrees. How can we describe them as lazy?
Today, we have over 32 public and private universities. Do they all have full-time faculty members and are no longer in need of professors? I do not understand why these universities set very difficult conditions for Saudis who want to join them as professors and do not impose the same conditions on non-Saudis. Are they not supposed to set the same hiring conditions for all candidates, regardless of nationality?
We all know that the majority of faculty members who teach preparation courses to new students are not Saudis and hold poor academic qualifications. Does the problem lie in our academic system and bureaucracy?
Saudi students are better than many of their non-Saudi counterparts because they go abroad and join prestigious universities in different countries. Apparently, our universities have a different opinion and prefer to employ non-Saudis. I cannot find any justification to explain why Saudis with PhDs continue to be unemployed.
