About 700 of the over 43,000 students currently on study scholarships abroad from the King Abdullah Scholarship Program have failed to complete their courses and returned to the Kingdom. Abdullah Al-Mosa, Vice Dean of Scholarship Affairs at the Higher Education Ministry, revealed the figures, saying that 61,961 Saudi students were abroad, over 9,000 of whom are studying at their own expense and more than 6,000 who are government employees. Seventeen percent of them are females. The Scholarships Affairs Administration registered 118 cases of violence committed against Saudi students abroad, according to Al-Mosa who added that the ministry was stopping scholarships to countries with records of violence against Saudi students. Al-Mosa further revealed ministry plans for a scholarship fund and as well as studies conducted with banks to provide soft loans to students abroad to allow them to continue their studies. The ministry, Al-Mosa added, is trying to reduce the number of students in some countries and will add more countries to the list, among them Sweden for the study of nanotechnology. Al-Mosa said that scholarship students of both sexes were chosen equally from all the provinces in the Kingdom.
