More than one quarter of the recently announced annual budget has been earmarked for education. I believe that because of this, our expectation about improvements in education should be equally big. Education deserves large amounts of money because it’s the most important sector that we can invest our public and private money in. Through the gate of education, we can enter a better tomorrow.
We, as citizens, have every right to present to the minister of education and the minister of higher education our requests and demands. We have every right to say to the Ministry of Education’s officials that we need to build appropriate educational buildings suitable for our children’s learning needs.
We want to see green spaces where children can run and play breathing unpolluted air. We do not want to spend all our savings to enroll our children in private schools so that they can access better services with fewer students in each classroom and teachers with more time to answer students’ questions.
We want schools with libraries where children can broaden their perspectives. We want them to learn the English language and want them to be taught using the most effective modern techniques. We also want laboratories where sciences could be taught effectively.
Most importantly, we would like to see a fairly poor educational curriculum changing into the best. I wish along with many parents to see our children graduate from high school capable of choosing the major that matches their skills and that also meets the demands of the job market. We do not want them graduating without knowing what they want to do with their lives. Currently, that is a disaster many parents experience.
We expect that with this huge allocation in budget, rented school premises would be shut down. We have the right to expect improvements in curriculum, buildings and teaching staff. Our society and system’s development will not be successful without a developed educational system.
I believe that expanding our colleges in the Kingdom requires the construction of new premises. It’s unrealistic to see our students studying in villas when they are in their university years. We also want to have new majors that represent the best type of investment in human resources and money.
One quarter of the budget this year is enough to motivate us to request a lot from the Ministry of Education and the Ministry of Higher Education in the year 2007.
