There are too many Arabic and Shariah graduates in the market currently, according to Dr. Mefrij Al-Haqbani, Deputy Minister of Labor. Al-Haqbani said these graduates rarely get the jobs they were trained for, and often have to settle for jobs paying as little as SR2,000 a month. However, there are plans to upgrade the training and courses of colleges offering these diplomas and degrees. This is being carried out by various government agencies, including the National Commission for Academic Accreditation and Assessment (NCAAA) at the Ministry of Higher Education. Some graduates are bitter about not being able to find jobs. Muhammad Al-Qerrni said he graduated from a faculty of Arabic language two years ago, but has not found a job to suit his qualification. He eventually accepted a job for SR2,000. He said this is the situation of many graduates, particularly from the faculties of humanities and social studies. He said this is mainly because of a lack of coordination between the universities and ministries of Higher Education, Civil Service and Labor. There has been intense public debate about Arabic and Shariah graduates. Two years ago, there was criticism of Dr. Muhammad Ali Hayzae, President of Jizan University, for saying that the labor market was saturated with Shariah graduates. In response, some researchers said that there were only 15,972 Shariah graduates, but the market needed 116,343 over the next 10 years. They said the problem was with vague employment methods. Dr. Suhail Bin Hassan Qadi, former president of Umm Al-Qura University, said these Arabic and Shariah colleges should not be closed, but a limited number of students should be allowed to enroll. This will prevent graduates joining the country's unemployment queues. He said a call to limit the number of students was made 15 years ago by the Ministry of Civil Service. “There is no need to waste the state's money by increasing the numbers of unemployed citizens. We should be courageous enough to stop this waste by either a freeze on admissions for a few years, or by not opening up new colleges.” Dr. Khaled Al-Derais, Supervisor of the Prince Naif Chair for Intellectual Security, rejected Qadi's idea. “The real problem lies with weak professional training. People should identify the root cause of the problem. We need to introduce changes in the syllabi to cope with changes in the world.” __
