Badar Bin Saud Okaz newspaper The King Abdullah Scholarship Program, which has entered its eighth year, should be continued for several reasons. Most important among them is accessibility to higher education for those who did not get admission at the local universities. It is also be beneficial for those who want to continue specialized higher studies abroad once they have completed all the required conditions for getting admission to the courses. Early on, foreign scholarship was open to those doing their bachelor's, Master's and doctorate degrees. Later, restrictions were imposed on bachelor's degree courses and then scholarships were stopped for all types of educational courses in some countries. This does not mean that the foreign scholarship program has stopped altogether or there is a ban on scholarship for doing bachelor's degree courses. Universities and government sectors continued sending their employees to attend courses in some countries after concluding bilateral agreement in this respect. The scholarship program is generally useful and helps spur positive investment in developing human resources of our younger generation and thus serving our development goals. I wrote about my impressions about the scholarship program as a reaction to recent Saudi press reports that there are about 3,500 unemployed Saudi men and women who are holders of Master's and doctorate degrees. Among them are some who have graduated from the most prestigious universities in Europe and America. A five-member delegation, representing these jobless graduates, had sought an appointment with the Minister of Higher Education. Eventually, they got confirmation from the ministry for a meeting with the minister on December 15. But later, they were informed that the meeting was postponed due to the minister's busy engagements and they were not given a new date for the meeting. There is no doubt that this figure of the jobless among the highly educated Saudis is alarming, and this figure could rise perhaps three-fold. These graduates say that they wanted to raise the matter with the minister after they found that solution for their unemployment problem was wanting. None of the Saudi universities offered them jobs even though there exist vacancies. Their demand was only to implement the royal decree number 74 that calls for replacing foreigners with Saudis and royal decree number 175 that calls for making Saudis capable of taking up trades being held by foreigners. They have compiled a list of more than 5,000 foreigners who are employed at various universities in violation of the laws. They say that Saudi universities prefer foreigners to Saudis without any documented procedures. They put conditions that are impossible to meet so as to avoid employing Saudis, and also recruit academics that do not have specializations in the respective categories. Private companies and establishments also display flagrant discrimination against Saudis. A Saudi company sacked a Saudi employee and hired a foreigner to replace him. The company justified the act by raising serious allegations against the employee and four other Saudis who were also dismissed along with him. The Labor Office is now examining the case. The sacked employee is well versed in four languages. He invented a unique device before his dismissal from service. A French company invited him for a demonstration of this device as well as to train its employees on it. He is a very good specimen of the scholarship program's success and the best proof of it is his proficiency in four languages. I hope nobody would come forward to say that trades such as plumbing, carpentry and puncture repair are available for these highly educated Saudis or advise Saudis to overcome their shyness and come forward to take up such jobs. It is unreasonable not to have a clear plan to take advantage of these holders of higher degrees, especially when many of these graduates are jobless. There should be harmony between those who graduated from the scholarship program and what is required in the local employment market. This is required to rein in the rising unemployment figures among the highly qualified Saudis.
