Fatima Muhammad

Saudi Gazette

 

JEDDAH — The Kingdom is now passing through a “distinguished stage” in which it will be moving toward an “economic knowledge society.” It will ensure Kingdom’s march toward becoming a developed country, Prince Khaled Al-Faisal, minister of education, said here on Wednesday.



“To achieve this we need to spend money wisely and ensure sustainable development. We have not been making good use of opportunities as some other Asian countries have done,” he added.



Speaking at a workshop on “Alignment of Education Outcomes with the Labor Market Demands to Serve Saudi Youth”, organized by his ministry in cooperation with the Ministry of Labor and Technical and Vocational Training Corporation (TVTC), Prince Khaled said: “We are fed up with theories and studies that are clustered in our offices. It’s time to move these studies into production stage.”



Education, he elaborated, cannot stand on its own. It needs to be intertwined with efforts of other government bodies including the ministry of labor. “Education is a necessary element in each strategic plan,” the prince added.



The minister felt sorry for the Saudi youths who believe that all high school graduates should enroll in universities and later have a government job waiting for them.



“Media talk about unemployment among Saudi graduates while we are recruiting foreigners who are being paid higher emoluments,” he noted. The government’s role, he added, is to provide “knowledge and training to students to enable them to discover their interests and capabilities.”



Meanwhile, Adel Fakeih, minister of labor, said during the next 10 years the Kingdom will have 4 million high school graduates. “We want to equip a million of them to be able to get jobs without the need to pursue further education. This can only happen if we provide vocational training to them that fits market needs.”



Muhammad Al-Zugbi, general manager of the curriculum department at the Ministry of Education, told Saudi Gazette that this new approach will help more high school graduates get jobs without the need to pursue higher education. It will help young Saudis to “get jobs that are most in demand and will also get them good salaries.”



General education in the Kingdom, he added, is undergoing changes and the ministry has included “more skills and less education material.”



The education system now, said Al-Zugbi, is to highlight topics as human rights, sustainable development and entrepreneurs programs. Some other programs are achieved in cooperation with Human Resources Development Fund and district school clubs. While the Saudi Commission for Tourism and Antiquities has provided training to 450 students.



On the sidelines of the workshop, Jorge Schubert, a partner at McKinsey & Company which is in charge of establishing colleges of excellence run under the umbrella of TVTC, told Saudi Gazette that they are working to set up 100 colleges in four years to train some 300,000 students.



The first phase of the project has been finalized with 10 colleges already operating in different regions with a total capacity of 25,000 students. The second phase will be finalized by 2014 and will welcome 53,000 students. All fees, added Schubert, are being paid by the government and on top of that each student gets a monthly allowance of SR1,000.



Students, he said, are trained in market-oriented skills. The different fields include: mechanics, electronics, information technology, human resources and finance. Women, he added, have been accorded more attention in training for these skills. They are also being included in training for administrative works, he said.