JEDDAH: Saudi teenager Abdulrahman Saeed lives in one of the richest countries in the world, but his prospects are poor, he blames his education, and it's not a situation that looks like changing soon. “There is not enough in our curriculum,” says Saeed, 16, who goes to an all-male state school in Jeddah. “It is just theoretical teaching, and there is no practice or guidance to prepare us for the job market.” Saeed wants to study physics but worries that his state high school is failing him. He says the curriculum is outdated, and teachers simply repeat what is written in textbooks without adding anything of practical value or discussions. Even if the teachers did do more than the basics, Saeed's class, at 32 students, is too big for him to get adequate attention. While children in Europe and Asia often start learning a language at five or six, Saudi students start learning English at 12. Much time is spent studying religion and completing exercises heavy with moral instruction. One task for eighth grade students: “Discuss the problem of staying up late, its causes, effects and cure.” In the face of rising unemployment, Saeed has taken parts of his education into his own hands. He learned how to use the Internet on his own and sets himself research projects in his own time to try to make up for his school's shortcomings. “The subjects available are not enough to carry us to the career or specialization that is needed for the job,” he complains. The region's thinkers had a profound influence on the evolving western science of the Middle Ages. But from kindergarten to university, its state education system has barely entered the modern age. Focused on religious and Arabic studies, it has long struggled to produce the scientists, engineers, economists and lawyers that Saudi needs. Employers complain that universities churn out graduates who are barely computer-literate and struggle with English. “Education in our country cannot be compared to education abroad,” says Dina Faisal, mother of a 15-year old student in Jeddah. “We have a lack of sciences, physics, and biology. That is what is needed to push the country forward. There has been some change but it is far from being complete.” Six years ago, King Abdullah, Custodian of the Two Holy Mosques, launched an overhaul of state schools and universities. The effort is part of a raft of reforms designed to build a modern state and diversify the economy away from oil to create more jobs. King Abdullah launched his $2.4 billion “Tatweer” initiative – Tatweer is Arabic for development – in 2005, promising to overhaul teaching methods, emphasise science and train 500,000 teachers. The King has repeatedly said that giving young people a better education is at the heart of his plan to build a modern state and fight religious extremism. “Humanity has been the target of vicious attacks from extremists, who speak the language of hatred, fear dialogue, and pursue destruction,” King Abdullah said in 2009 at the inauguration of King Abdullah University for Science and Technology, a high-tech campus near Jeddah with an estimated budget of $10 billion. “We cannot fight them unless we learn to coexist without conflict... Undoubtedly, scientific centres that embrace all peoples are the first line of defense against extremists.” Since then, the number of state and private universities catering to the 300,000 or so high school students who graduate every year has grown to 32 from eight before 2005. A large female-only university is under construction near Riyadh airport. Until the new universities take root, the government has given scholarships to 109,000 students to study in top universities mainly in the United States, Europe and the Middle East. Schools too are changing. Within two years, all primary and high schools will get new mathematics and science textbooks that follow US standards, the government says. Thousands of teachers are undergoing extra training. Primary schools will still focus largely on teaching Arabic and religion, but high schools will have more science and mathematics classes. A 2007 study by the respected Trends in International Mathematics and Science Study (TIMSS) put Saudi students third-last in eighth grade mathematics. In the science category, the Kingdom was fifth-last. Saudi Arabia also ranked 93rd of 129 in UNESCO's 2008 index assessing quality of education. Analysts say there has been no noticeable improvement in the Kingdom's education standards in the past four years. “I think 10 years is a realistic option to see a real change if all plans are implemented,” says a consultant who has worked for the Education Ministry and spoke on condition of anonymity. A 2008 study by Booz & Company said progress had been made in Saudi Arabia and other Gulf Arab countries, agreeing that noticeable results can be obtained in a decade, even though “realization of the full economic impact may require a generational period.” A question of jobs The problem is, companies much prefer to hire expatriates instead of locals, in large part because of shoddy education. The number of expats working in Saudi Arabia has risen by 37 percent to 8.4 million in the past six years. Expats now fill nine out of 10 jobs in the private sector, according to John Sfakianakis, chief economist of Banque Saudi Fransi. Labor Minister Adil Fakieh said last month the government hopes to create five million jobs for Saudis by 2030 but economists think that's unlikely. Unemployment among Saudis has risen. Officially, the rate was 10 percent in 2010; the rate of female unemployment is probably triple that. The state has introduced quotas on the percentage of local workers private firms must hire. But companies have become expert at circumventing the laws, by hiring lots of locals for low-level jobs, or breaking up firms into smaller entities “just to have smaller quotas,” says a banker in Riyadh. In the past, many Saudis found work with the government. But the Kingdom has one of the region's highest population growth rates so citizens no longer automatically get such jobs. In stark contrast to a generation ago, you can find Saudis working as taxi drivers, supermarket cashiers or private security guards, jobs which net as little as 1,500 riyals ($400) a month. “I was surprised to see Saudis work in supermarkets. That would have been impossible 10 years ago,” says a Western diplomat on his second posting to Saudi Arabia. Nael Fayez, head of Injaz, a non-governmental organization that helps prepare students for the job market, believes education is the main problem. “There is a rising gap between the requirements of the private sector and what state school produces,” he says. “We need to fill the gap.” Private institutions Saudi officials are also pinning their hopes on private schools and colleges at home which have sprung up in major cities in the past five years. A new technical college in a residential area of eastern Riyadh is one example. From the outside, the school looks like a typical state university – high walls shielding white brick buildings clustered around a large mosque. Inside, the differences are radical. Germany's state aid agency GTZ, which gets paid for the project by the Saudi government, has installed laptops, Power Point presentation facilities, and electronic workstations. The aim of the 45 teachers who run the school is to turn out Saudi vocational teachers who can then transform how things work at more than 100 technical colleges around the country. The students have already graduated from state technical high schools but feel they have entered a new world. “It's totally different and better compared to the previous institute, the methods to try out things, the materials,” says Mohammed Al-Mansour, who came from Najran near the Yemeni border to study here. Applications are piling up. Of some 2,000 requests the college has admitted 450 students so far but plans to expand to 2,000 by 2012. “It's just excellent, much better than I had expected,” said 24-year old Ahmad Hamdashi from Riyadh, talking while his friends work on measuring power current on work stations at their desks. The students' biggest surprise, perhaps, is to find that a teacher doesn't just have to read from a book. “Let's do it again,” says teacher Bernhard Homann, insisting everyone in the class tests the currents properly. “We want them to work out things on their own,” says Raimund Sobetzko, vice dean at the school.
