Use Oil Boom for Massive Education Reform: Banker
Stephen L. Brundage, Arab News

JEDDAH, 12 May 2005 — A leading Saudi banker said funds from the oil-price boom should be invested in massive improvements to the education system in order to sustain future economic development.

Abdulhadi Shayif of the National Commercial Bank told a crowd of businessmen and industrialists that a boom akin to the country’s economic performance in the 1970s was taking shape. He noted more than $100 billion in projects from oil to transportation would heat up the Saudi economy for several years. Rather than concentrate on infrastructure improvements as the country did in the 1970s, he says it is time to develop human resources.

Abdulhadi Shayif makes a great deal of sense. Education in Saudi Arabia needs to take precedence over infrastructure. With a sudden surplus in income, the country needs to prioritize its spending. I think the greatest need is in education, to reform a system that has failed both in its methodology and curriculum.

Rote memorization of “established facts” doesn’t create an educated student; it only produces people who can memorize. Equally, a curriculum that focus on minutiae while ignoring the history of the world and sciences cannot produce educated citizens.

But simply throwing money at education won’t work any better in Saudi Arabia than it does in the US. Education itself requires an infrastructure, ranging from school buildings to faculty. Faculty, as this companion Arab News article shows, is in fact the harder problem:

Teacher Shortage Slows English Curriculum
Judy Al-Bakr, Arab News

RIYADH, 12 May 2005 — Fourth and fifth grade English classes in government schools have been postponed due to a lack of qualified teachers, a Ministry of Education spokesman said yesterday.

The move comes after ministry officials found that results of recently implemented sixth grade classes were disappointing.

“The ministry intended to start teaching English in fifth grade next year and fourth grade the year after,” the spokesman said.

Neither simply declaring someone a teacher, nor hiring a foreigner with minimal a education degree is going to work. When the country first starting hiring foreign teachers, back in the 60s and 70s, many of the available teachers–or at least degree holders–were religious extremists who were being chased out of their home countries of Egypt, Syria, and Pakistan. They–hired because there were no qualified Saudis and because they looked good on paper–I believe, are the ones most responsible for the radicalization of an entire generation of Saudi youth.

That mistake need not be made again.