MIDDLE EAST, KSA, Saudi- Rise in family incomes pushes up enrollments in universities

The Ministry of Higher Education has attributed the rapidly growing number of students in the Kingdom seeking university education to the remarkable growth in the people’s income.

The Kingdom’s per capita income reached SR 81,200 in 2011, according to an estimate of the World Bank.

The university admissions have been growing at the rate of 10.3 percent annually according to a recent report of the ministry for the academic year 2011, which said most of the academic institutions offered “free” education despite the high income of the people.
The report also identified the zeal on the part of young women take degrees as another reason for the sharp growth in the number of university students in recent years.

“Apart from a positive shift in the social stance toward women’s education, women are getting more encouragement and new opportunities for education,” the report added. The study also noted that more than half of the total students enrolled in universities during 2011 were women.
The report put the number of women who joined various university degree programs in the Kingdom at 523,583.

“The number of women studying for bachelor degrees in 2011 was 477,370, for intermediate diploma 29,567 women, for master degree 11,798 women and for post graduate diploma 3,234 women while 1,583 women were doing Ph.D,” the report said.

While about 209,000 women were doing humanities and arts majors only 98,000 women chose social sciences, business management and law and 84,000 went for science majors and 40,000 women joined education departments. The report also showed that while 37,311 women joined health and social services programs, 9,000 women studied engineering and industrial production courses, and 1,354 opted for agricultural science.

The report also said 27,510 women accounting for 3 percent of all women students in the Kingdom’s universities went abroad under the King Abdullah Foreign Scholarship Project. They accounted for 23.2 percent of the all scholarship students in that year. It also noted that 3,781 women studied without any scholarship that year.

The report also said 9 percent of the students were included in the scholarship project as they were spouses accompanying the students while the total number of the foreign scholarship students reached at 130,000 in 2011. “The number of men students under the scholarship program enrolled for bachelor degree accounted for 58.3 percent of the total number of students, for master degree 24.2 percent, 5.6 percent for doctoral degrees and 2 percent for fellowships while 9.8 percent were doing some other course,” the report said.

While 36 percent of the scholarship students were specialized in social sciences, law and business management, 18.3 percent chose engineering and productive industries, according to the report. While more than 10,000 female scholarship students joined degree programs, 11,163 were doing master degree and 2,000 joined Ph.D programs and 600 fellowship programs and more than 3,000 women at some other levels of studies in 2011.

Regarding the specializations chosen by Saudi women students in foreign countries, the report said 1,702 students chose education as their major, 2,406 went for arts and humanities, 9,523 were doing social sciences, business management or law.

It added that 5,000 students studied science, 848 women were studying for engineering and productive industries, While only 15 women were interested in agriculture, 6,900 students specialized in health and social services apart from about 1,000 women studying various other majors, the report said.