Women constitute 51% of university students

RIYADH: Saudi women make up 51.8 percent of registered students at public universities and 49 percent at private institutions, the Education Ministry announced recently.
This has largely been due to the massive spending allocated to education by the government, continuously since the times of the founder King Abdul Aziz up till the reign of the present government, the Saudi Press Agency reported, quoting the ministry’s statistics.
The ministry has initiated several projects to help women over the years.
Custodian of the Two Holy Mosques King Salman has recently approved the Princess Noura bint Abdulrahman Award for Excellence to encourage women to take up leadership positions in science here and abroad, the report stated.
In 2012, there were 511,593 women students registered at public universßities, which rose to 551,192 in 2013, making up 51.8 percent of all students.
At private institutions, the number of students rose from 26,589 in 2012, to 33,686 in 2013, making up 49 percent of all students.
In addition, at public universities in 2013, 6,356 students graduated with degrees, 16,221 with master’s qualifications and 1,744 with doctorates. There were 177 students selected for fellowship programs.
At private universities, 2,771 students graduated with degrees in various scientific disciplines in 2013, compared to 1,480 in 2012.
Since the launch of the Custodian of the Two Holy Mosques Foreign Scholarship Program in 2005, the ministry has provided support for women to take up courses in a wide variety of disciplines for undergraduate and postgraduate study at some of the top institutions in the world.
Saudi women are studying in 57 countries, with 18,221 in the United States, 6,754 in European nations, 2,923 in Canada, and 1,445 in Australia and New Zealand.
The Kingdom has also recently ensued that women are employed at private and public companies in the country, with efforts by the Labor Ministry to reserve jobs for them in certain industries.