Abdullah Bin Bakheet

Al-Riyadh





Saudization is a double-edged sword. Many people use the term to refer to the replacement of all expatriate workers by Saudis without any conditions. Some people want to see Saudis taking over all jobs because they deserve to have them. This may be possible for some jobs. You can, for example, employ Saudis in certain administrative jobs and replace expatriate staff. But this is impossible for all jobs. Let’s take university education as an example. Not everyone who has a postgraduate degree can teach university students. We keep complaining about the poor level of Saudi college graduates. Have we ever thought that Saudization may be the culprit?

Every position or job should only be filled when the required standards have been met. We should not, for emotional reasons, Saudize all jobs and then complain about receiving bad service. To make things clearer, look at the traffic departments all over the Kingdom. The Saudization of the police force is strictly observed and enforced in all departments. All members of staff are Saudis. But are we satisfied with the traffic services provided to us?



Ever since Prince Khaled Al-Faisal was appointed Minister of Education and ever since the generous funding allocated by the Custodian of the Two Holy Mosques to this sector, everyone in the media has been talking about this sector. It is in the spotlight.



Over the past years, we have heard discussions and debates about the academic level of college and high school graduates. But we have not heard anyone talking about how the ministry is run and what type of expertise its directors possess. The good administration of schools is more important than the curricula and the level of teachers. I believe it all boils down to management. In order for us to understand why we still suffer from problems like poor teachers and inadequate curricula, we should consider that it may have something to do with the strict enforcement of Saudization in the ministry. Has the ministry ever signed contracts with foreign experts or global educational institutions to improve its services?

 

I think it is high time that we should reconsider the way the ministry is run. We should tackle this problem with an open mind. Let’s set Saudization aside for the time being. We can enforce it later after we have solved this problem. We should engage global companies and institutions to help us design organizational structures. We should follow and adopt the Finnish, Canadian, or Australian models.



There is no stigma attached to copying others and follow in their footsteps. We should not spend years and years in order to gain experience while experience is available in the global market. We can bring educational experts from advanced countries and have them design curricula for us. We should ask our education directors to listen to and work with those foreign experts and learn from them. Only then will we have achieved real Saudization, not emotion-driven Saudization.