RIYADH – The United States is ranked first among the world countries in the number of Saudi students pursuing higher studies abroad under the Custodian of the Two Holy Mosques' Foreign Scholarship Program. The US makes up 30 percent of the total students and it is followed by Britain with 15 percent, Canada 11 percent and Australia 8 percent. The scholarship program emanates from the Kingdom's keenness in promoting education as an important pillar of the Saudi human resources building. All leaders from the Kingdom's founder King Abdulaziz till Custodian of the Two Holy Mosques King Salman have spared no effort to support education in various disciplines. In the framework of this interest, King Salman met, during his official visit to US in 2015, with a gathering of distinguished Saudi students who were pursuing higher studies in American universities. There are 84,012 Saudi scholarship students in the US. The first batch of 30 Saudi students sent to US in 1947 where they joined the University of Texas. The total number of young Saudi men and women studying in universities across the US exceeded 120,000. These included scholarship students and those accompanying them as well students doing their courses at their own expenses, in addition to government employees sent on scholarships to enable them to benefit from the academic expertise from prestigious global institutions. There are 36 initiatives to develop education in the newly unveiled National Transformation Program within the framework of Kingdom's Vision 2030. These initiatives include a program to develop the Foreign Scholarship Program and improve its operational efficiency with an allocation of SR48 million. Under the scholarship program, young Saudis are pursuing studies in as many as 35 countries. In the beginning, the number of students sent abroad under the King's Scholarship Program was 5,000. According to a UNESCO report, the Kingdom tops other countries in the number of scholarship students sent abroad for higher studies. The Kingdom has spent a total of SR22.5 billion on this program during the past fiscal year. Among the scholarship students, 15 percent pursue studies in medicine and medical sciences, 14 percent in computer and IT, 10 percent in engineering, and 26 percent in economics, business and administration.
