Revitalized education key to national transformation

RIYADH: Education forms the core of the ambitious Vision 2030, intending to insert positive moral beliefs in children’s characters from an early age by reshaping the academic system at the grass-roots level for a strong educational foundation.

Ready to usher in a new era of all-round development, the government outlines that schools, working with families, will reinforce the fabric of society by providing students with the compassion, knowledge and behaviors necessary for resilient and independent characters that will best serve the nation.
The government intends to deepen the participation of parents in the education process to help them develop their children’s characters and talents so that they can fully contribute to the society and will launch the “Irtiqaa” program to measure how effectively schools are engaging parents in their children’s education as this engagement is one of the main principles of success.
By 2020, the government aims to engage 80 percent of parents in school activities and the learning process of their children. Moreover, the government will establish parent-led boards in schools for open discussion forums.
The government will also collaborate with the private and nonprofit sectors to offer innovative educational programs and events that can further improve academic excellence. The academic system will be reshaped by focusing on the fundamental values of initiative, persistence and leadership, as well as social skills, cultural knowledge and self-awareness as the goal is to promote and reinvigorate social development in order to build a strong and productive society.
Furthermore, the government will be investing in quality education and training so that young men and women are equipped for the jobs of the future as the government wants Saudi children, wherever they live, to enjoy a higher quality, multi-faceted education.
The government also intends to expand vocational training in order to drive forward economic development, and scholarship opportunities will be steered toward prestigious international universities and awarded in the fields that serve the national priorities.
Moreover, the government is also outlining its strong determination to further develop five high-ranking Saudi universities toward becoming listed among the top 200 universities in the world.
The government will track progress and publish a sophisticated range of education outcomes, showing year-on-year improvements as it intends to build a centralized student database tracking students from early childhood through to K-12 and beyond into tertiary education (higher and vocational) in order to improve education planning, monitoring, evaluation and outcomes.
Lauding the promising provisions in Vision 2030, Dr. Abdulaziz bin Jamal Al-Saati, rector of King Faisal University (Eastern Province), said the vision carries a promising future for the youth of the Kingdom.
Dr. Wail Al-Qasim, a Saudi businessman, commended the government for its strong determination to invest in developing early childhood education, refining the national curriculum and training teachers, educational leaders and redoubling efforts to ensure that the outcomes of our education system are in line with market needs.
Abdullah Ahmad, a student, said it is good to know that with this quality change in the educational level of universities, it will be good to stay in the Kingdom for higher education, instead of going abroad.