The Kingdom is making massive investments in the education of its future generations to achieve a knowledge-based economy on the directives of King Abdullah, the Custodian of the Two Holy Mosques. This was stated by Prince Faisal Bin Abdullah, Minister of Education, in a speech to the three-day Saudi-US Business Opportunities Forum here Tuesday evening. Prince Faisal noted that the forum reflects the strong partnership and mutual trust between the Kingdom and the United States, stressing the importance of opening new horizons and opportunities of cooperation between the two countries. He reviewed the march of education in Saudi Arabia over the past decades and pointed out that the Kingdom is considered a distinguished example of educational progress in the Middle East and North Africa. He said that there are more than 33,000 schools in the Kingdom with more than five million students, representing a third of the nation's population, and nearly 500,000 male and female teachers. Prince Faisal said that the Custodian of the Two Holy Mosques Program for Foreign Scholarship is the largest scholarship program in the history of the Kingdom, and that currently more than 130,000 Saudi students are pursuing different fields of study in some of the best universities in the world. On the sidelines of the Atlanta business forum, the US Ambassador to the Kingdom James Smith issued a statement to the Saudi Press Agency expressing appreciation for the efforts exerted by King Abdullah, the Custodian of the Two Holy Mosques, to develop the Kingdom in all fields, commending the King's keenness on the reconstruction and expansion of the holy sites to serve Muslims as well as the development of education programs in Saudi Arabia. The ambassador described the Kingdom as a country that enjoys security and stability at a time when some countries in the region are facing troubled situations. He also stressed the importance of trade partnership between business sectors in Saudi Arabia and the United States.
