VZCZCXRO1056
PP RUEHDE
DE RUEHRH #3315/01 1221528
ZNY CCCCC ZZH
P 021528Z MAY 06
FM AMEMBASSY RIYADH
TO RUEHC/SECSTATE WASHDC PRIORITY 6978
INFO RUEHZM/GULF COOPERATION COUNCIL COLLECTIVE
RUEHLO/AMEMBASSY LONDON 2590
RUEHFR/AMEMBASSY PARIS 0531

C O N F I D E N T I A L SECTION 01 OF 03 RIYADH 003315 
 
SIPDIS 
 
SIPDIS 
 
DHAHRAN SENDS 
PARIS FOR ZEYA, LONDON FOR TSOU 
 
E.O. 12958: DECL: 05/01/2016 
TAGS: SOCI PGOV KMPI KPAO KIRF KWMN SA
SUBJECT: HIGHER EDUCATION IN THE EASTERN PROVINCE: LIMITED 
OPPORTUNITIES, POOR QUALITY 
 
REF: 2005 RIYADH 9116 
 
Classified By: Consul General John Kincannon for reasons 1.4 (b) and (d 
). 
 
¶1.  (C) Summary: Higher education in the Eastern Province of 
Saudi Arabia offers limited opportunities for students, 
particularly women and Shi'a.  What is available is of 
questionable quality, suffering from centralized and 
religious control, poor student preparation, and difficulty 
in recruiting professors of international caliber. Many 
consulate sources believe that the system is too broken to 
fix; many wealthy Saudis go to schools in Bahrain, the Gulf, 
and further away.  Private educational institutes meet some 
of the excess demand, and even the public universities have 
established fee-based programs for students who are not 
accepted into their free mainstream offerings.  End summary. 
 
¶2.  (SBU) Information reported here is based on conversations 
and meetings over the past year by the CG, PolOff and the 
PAO. Related past reporting includes 2005 Riyadh 9531 and 
2005 Riyadh 9468, on specific universities in the EP, and 
Riyadh 1982, Riyadh 1196, Riyadh 614 and Riyadh 332, on 
discrimination in the education system. 
 
------------------------------------- 
TOO MANY STUDENTS, NOT ENOUGH SCHOOLS 
------------------------------------- 
 
¶3.  (U) The Eastern Province (EP) is home to two major 
universities - King Fahd University of Petroleum and Minerals 
(KFUPM, 5,000 students) and King Faisal University (KFU, 
14,000 students). The first private university in the 
province, Prince Mohammed University (PMU) is set to open in 
Fall 2006 with an initial class of 600 students. The 
Kuwait-based Arab Open University (EP branch, 800 students) 
provides a split distance-learning/in-class option in Al Ahsa 
governorate. The Health Sciences College and the Teacher's 
College in Dammam have small classes each year.  The Jubail 
Industrial College (JIC) in Jubail and the Institute for 
Public Administration (IPA) in Dammam offer targeted programs 
for a few hundred students to train them for industrial and 
government work respectively. 
 
¶4.  (SBU) All of the public schools provide full tuition plus 
stipends to accepted students. All of them also have many 
more applicants than they can accept.  KFUPM, considered an 
elite institution, accepts about 10% of the 17,000 students 
who apply. JIC accepts about 11% of its 7000 applicants. Even 
KFU, responsible for meeting the higher education needs of 
the EP, only accepts 25% of the applicants for its nursing 
program, for example. The Dammam Health Science College 
caused traffic problems at its downtown location on the day 
it held entry examinations for applicants last summer.  "It's 
a country-wide problem, " says the vice president of King 
Faisal University, Dr. Abdulaziz Al-Saati, noting that there 
is huge gap each year between the number of high school 
graduates and the available seats at colleges and 
universities. 
 
¶5.  (C)  Opportunities for women are even more limited. 
KFUPM, JIC, and the Dammam branch of IPA only accept men. "We 
are the university that admits girls," said Dr. Yussuf 
Al-Gindan, president of KFU. Not all of the departments at 
KFU are open to women, however, and some subjects are offered 
to women on alternating years to maintain segregated classes. 
 Women are often taught via closed-circuit television, as 
male professors are not allowed in the women's section of the 
campus.  Women are also relegated to second-rate facilities. 
PolOff has heard of one biology student communicating by 
letter to her professor about a difficult lab assignment; due 
to segregation rules they are not allowed to meet in person, 
nor can he examine her lab work. 
 
¶6. (C)  Limited access to higher education is also felt 
keenly by members of the Shi'a minority in the Eastern 
Province. Many Shi'a consulate contacts assert strongly that 
there is outright discrimination limiting acceptance to 
universities for Shi'a applicants, regardless of test scores 
and other qualifications.  One top Shi'a student who applied 
to the Political Science faculty at Riyadh's King Saud 
University was told that field was not open to Shi'a. 
Repeated attempts to open a university in the Shi'a city of 
Qatif have failed to gain government permission.  In the most 
recent attempt last fall, a delegation of Shi'a community 
members was told that conservative members of the royal 
family would not allow a branch of the Arab Open University 
in Qatif.  Shi'a women have particular difficulty gaining a 
higher education, as they are less able than men to travel to 
places with more opportunities. 
 
----------------------------- 
A SYSTEM "ROTTEN AT THE CORE" 
----------------------------- 
 
¶7.  (C) "The Saudi educational system has produced garbage 
for the last 30 years", says Abdul Aziz Al-Turki, a prominent 
businessman from an influential family in the Eastern 
Province. ConOffs have heard similar sentiments from many 
other sources, many pointing to the overwhelming control of 
the religious establishment over the country's education 
system. Mohamed Yusof Rafie, VP of Industrial Relations at 
Saudi Aramco says there is a need for more attention on 
English and science and less on "the study of Quranic 
inheritance laws during 5th grade."  An American petroleum 
engineer at Saudi Aramco told PAO that "none of the Saudis 
educated in-country are qualified for the work (as petroleum 
engineers). We hire them anyway, but their training is 
lousy." And from Abdul Karim al Mutawwa, a businessman from 
the Shi'a community - "the education system is rotten at the 
core. The extremists have too much power and it affects 
everything." (Note: Saudization laws have limited the 
business community's ability to hire expatriates, making them 
more dependent on the Saudi education system to produce 
skilled labor.  Many complain that the government has 
required Saudization without strengthening the education 
system, creating a shortfall of skilled labor. End note.) 
 
¶8.  (C)  Many colleges and universities, including KFUPM, 
JIC, and PMU, require students graduating from the Saudi 
public school to do a 'preparatory year' of study in English 
and math before starting the regular degree program.  Saudi 
press reports assert that 87% of Saudi high school graduates 
do not have basic English skills. "The English curriculum is 
very weak; the students need a prep year," agrees Dr. Issa 
Alansari, the president of PMU.  For many students, the prep 
year is challenging; JIC has a dropout rate of over 50%. 
 
¶9.  (C)  The schools and the academic community in the 
Eastern Province are much more strictly segregated than other 
professional areas, such as business. Interaction with 
outsiders is discouraged.  Many administrators complained of 
the difficulty in recruiting internationally qualified 
professors.  Officially, Ministry of Foreign Affairs approval 
is required for ConOffs to visit KFUPM or KFU; individual 
academics and administrators will meet with us at 'neutral' 
locations but interaction with students is difficult. 
Consulate Public Diplomacy programming that has successfully 
reached students has been offered at off-campus locations 
near the university. 
 
------------------------------------------- 
WANT A QUALITY EDUCATION? LEAVE THE COUNTRY 
------------------------------------------- 
 
¶10.  (C)  Solutions, both at the individual and the 
government level, have centered on finding quality education 
outside of the country. In the Eastern Province, many people 
take advantage of the 1-hour commute over the causeway to 
Bahrain to access a better education system.  Saudi students 
at all levels, from grade school to graduate school, commute 
to Bahrain each day.  At the Arab Open University branch in 
Bahrain, for example, there are almost 1000 Saudi students. 
Many people also go further away, within the Gulf countries 
and elsewhere.  Saudi Aramco sends 300 people to study at US 
and other universities each year, after a preparatory 
post-high school year. 
 
¶11.  (C) The Saudi government, with the announcement in June 
2005 of scholarships for 15,000 Saudis to study abroad, chose 
the same option. The response was overwhelming; more than 
47,000 Saudi students applied for the scholarships in the 
first six months.  The pressure on the limited resources of 
the Saudi universities has decreased as a result; 
administrators at KFU, KFUPM, JIC and other educational 
institutes have told ConOffs that the scholarship program has 
affected their applicant pool.  Most consulate contacts 
believe that the scholarships have been administered fairly 
to date, regardless of gender or religious affiliation.  The 
Shi'a community has benefited tremendously.  Shi'a community 
organizers in Qatif and Al-Ahsa areas have helped hundreds of 
students navigate the university and visa application 
procedures.  Over 300 students attended a Study in the USA 
Seminar in Qatif organized by the Mission's Public Affairs 
section.  There are indications that as many as 30% of the 
scholarships have gone to Saudi Shi'a (although they comprise 
perhaps only 10-15% of the Kingdom's population) because the 
Shi'a have sought out the opportunity more aggressively due 
to their circumscribed opportunities at home.  Funding for 
women includes the option of a stipend for an accompanying 
'muhram' or guardian. Some women have taken advantage of the 
opportunity, although many still face family opposition to 
their travel and study abroad; more than 90% of the 
scholarships have gone to Saudi males. 
 
--------------------------------------------- 
THE PRIVATE SECTOR MOVES INTO SAUDI EDUCATION 
--------------------------------------------- 
 
¶12.  (SBU) Privatization of higher education is starting in 
the Eastern Province.  Many private institutes now provide 
diploma or certificate degrees in the Eastern Province.  They 
are of varying quality; some like the Al Bassam Institute 
have partnered with on-line diploma mills under USG legal 
investigation.  Others, like DirectEnglish, offer legitimate 
English and computer courses.  Public universities in the EP 
have recently opened 'parallel tracks', where students pay 
tuition. At KFU 800 students a year are accepted into the 
'self-budgeting community college'.  KFU's medical school 
accepts a small class of paying students as well, "where we 
test new, expensive teaching techniques," said the 
university's president. JIC has also started a tuition-based 
program for students who are not accepted in the regular 
track.  The for-profit Institute for Industrial Management 
and Information Technology offers a diploma modeled after 
KFUPM's curriculum. 
 
¶13.  (C) Prince Mohammed University, opening in Fall 2006 
will be the first private university in the Eastern Province. 
 It has had strong support from the eponymous Governor of the 
Eastern Province, Prince Mohammed.  PMU will be an expensive 
university with high aspirations, and has been developed in 
close cooperation with the Texas International Education 
Consortium.  Like the Arab Open University branch in Al Ahsa 
which is supported by Prince Talal bin Abdulaziz, it has a 
different curriculum than the public universities along with 
a high-level royal sponsor.  "We expect to be the most 
distinguished university in the Middle East," says Dr. Issa 
Alansari, the president of PMU.  The manager of the Khobar 
branch of DirectEnglish told PAO that he considered 
developing an inexpensive, for-profit, college, but ran into 
government obstacles. "The government only wants expensive 
places with Olympic-size pools," he said. 
 
¶14.  Comment: The Saudi system for higher education in the 
Eastern Province is unable to meet student demand.  Real 
reform in the Saudi education system remains elusive. The 
emergence of private universities like the Prince Mohammed 
University and the Arab Open university will help provide 
better options, but so far remain small.  Many working-level 
university administrators in the EP requested ConOffs' 
assistance in creating linkages with US universities and 
professors.  Given the influence of the religious 
establishment, such activities should be carefully designed, 
yet are desperately needed, as noted in the Public Diplomacy 
Strategy for Saudi Arabia (reftel). Scholarships to study 
abroad are a welcome relief to the pressure on a weak 
educational system in Saudi Arabia, but are not a viable 
long-term solution to the need for educational reform. 
 
(APPROVED: KINCANNON) 
GFOELLER