Academic staff at Princess Noura Bint Abdul Rahman University are reportedly turning down in droves the opportunity to take scholarships abroad because of “family conditions”. University director Princess Al-Jawhara Bint Fahd Aal Saud said that despite concerted encouragement, only 45 staff members accepted scholarships in foreign countries last year. The number, however, marked a significant rise on the previous year's figure of 10. Princess Al-Jawhara said that the university was coming up with ways to help staff continue with their home commitments and accept the chance to improve academically. “We have a joint supervision scheme that enables those who cannot go on scholarships abroad due to family conditions to benefit from the holiday time they spend abroad with their families, so that their research may be supervised from within the Kingdom and abroad,” she said. The current year at the university, meanwhile, has seen an intake of 8,000 students, something which Princess Al-Jawhara assured did not represent a fall in standards, but was instead a result of the opening of three medical faculties, and faculties for computer studies, management, economics, and language and translation. The campus of Princess Noura Bint Abdul Rahman University, the world's largest women-only university, is still under construction and projected to be complete in 2012 to allow an intake of 26,000 women students.
