Some 370 Saudi students, who pursued higher studies in Australia at their personal expense, will now benefit from the King Abdullah Foreign Scholarship Program.

Crown Prince Salman, deputy premier and minister of defense, who is currently on a visit to Australia to attend the G-20 summit, has given directives to this effect.

Abdul Aziz bin Abdullah bin Taleb, Saudi cultural attaché in Australia, thanked Prince Salman for the royal gesture, adding that it would benefit 370 qualified Saudis.

Taleb also commended Custodian of the Two Holy Mosques King Abdullah’s generous support to strengthen the country’s education sector.

More than 150,000 Saudis have so far benefited from the scholarship program, which was introduced by King Abdullah in 2005.

“The program is designed to be an important source of support for Saudi universities as well as the public and private sectors in the Kingdom by supplying them with highly qualified Saudi citizens,” said the Higher Education Ministry, which supervises the program.

The program began by sending a group of male and female students to study in the US. Its scope was then broadened to include a number of advanced countries including Canada, UK, Japan, Australia, Malaysia, Turkey and India.

Students at the undergraduate (bachelor’s degree) level are allowed to study medicine, medical sciences, and health sciences while graduate level (master’s degree and Ph.D.) students are eligible to enroll in medicine, dentistry, pharmacy, nursing, medical sciences such as radiology, medical laboratories, medical technology, and physical therapy and engineering subjects like civil, architectural, electric, mechanical, industrial, chemical, environmental and communications engineering, as well as heavy equipment and machinery and computer engineering, computer science, networks, etc.

In addition, they can also study pure sciences such as mathematics, physics, chemistry, biology. Other disciplines include law, accounting, e-commerce, finance, insurance and marketing.

 
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