Page 252 - Arabia the Gulf and the West

‘Araby the Blest’ 249

itself in two minds about the desirability of education for its subjects. On the
one hand it acknowledges the country’s need for technicians and clerks, and
the desirability of showing an enlightened countenance to the world. On the
other hand, it is suspicious of the tendency of secular education to arouse the
political consciousness of the young. Considerable emphasis is placed, there­
fore, upon the religious content of what is taught in the schools, to the extent
that, for the majority of pupils, the instruction they receive is barely distin­
guishable from that imparted in Koranic schools in the past.
Foreign observers are inclined to make much of the segregation of male and
female pupils into separate schools, and to criticize it as both a reflection of the
inferior status accorded women in Saudi Arabian society and a wasteful dupli­
cation of educational resources. It is difficult to see the logic in such criticism.
Separate schooling for girls and boys is hardly a rarity in the Western world - or
anywhere around the globe, for that matter - nor does it involve much, if it
involves any, duplication of resources. This is also true of higher education,
where the only duplication of any consequence that arises is in the provision of
libraries and expensive scientific equipment. The position and treatment of
women in Saudi Arabia is a separate question. Yet here again, distressing
though the lowly status and legal disabilities of Saudi Arabian women may
appear to Western eyes, and regrettable though the waste of the talents of the
educated among them may be (through their exclusion from public life and

most forms of employment), the right of a society to raise its young in the way it
sees fit is undeniable. What is more pertinent to any inquiry into education in
Saudi Arabia is, as remarked already, the quality of this education, and the
available indications are that it is not good at any level. The College (now
University) of Petroleum and Minerals at Dhahran, for instance, the longest-
established as well as the best of the institutions of higher learning, was always
considered to be well below the standard of similar colleges in Europe and
North America, and it is doubtful whether the situation has altered - whatever
glutinous fudge Western reporters may choose to write about it. A comparable
doubt extends to the standard of education being attained by the 20,000 or so
Saudi Arabians studying abroad, the great majority of them in the United
States. While a small proportion of these may be enrolled in Ivy League
colleges or the major state universities, the greatest number is to be found in
institutions of lesser academic distinction. Wherever they may be, moreover, a
certain indulgence is extended to them in the matter of scholastic attainment,
so that the qualifications with which they proudly return home are of question­
able value.
What has been said of education in Saudi Arabia applies pari passu to the
country’s medical services. Twenty years ago these did not exist. The only
doctors were those in attendance upon the royal family, the foreign community
and the richer merchants of Jiddah. The only hospital deserving of the name
was that operated by ARAMCO at Dhahran. Under the current five-year plan