As many as 1,537 students on the Custodian of the Two Holy Mosques Scholarship Program have had their studies terminated and returned to the Kingdom prematurely for “violations”, the Ministry of Higher Education Undersecretary for Scholarship Affairs has said. Without giving details of the nature of the 117 offenses, Undersecretary Abdullah Al-Mousa said that they had occurred over the four years since the program began and included both male and female students. “They are no more than the expected problems of daily life,” Al-Mousa said. “The ministry gives students first, second and third chances, but if they fail to take the third chance, the scholarship is over.” Al-Mousa said that terminated scholarships represented “no more than two percent” of the 62,000 scholarship students in higher education abroad. On Sunday, the Ministry of Higher Education halted scholarships to Britain and Australia due to the large numbers of Saudi students there.
