Massive Women's University Opens

You may remember in an earlier post a distant photo of a women's college in progress. Two years later and they have begun classes in some of the buildings.

Abdullah founds women’s university in Riyadh today

ref: http://www.saudigazette.com.sa/index.cfm?method=home.regcon&contentID=2008102920500

King Abdullah, Custodian of the Two Holy Mosques, is scheduled to lay the foundation stone for the University City of the Riyadh University for Girls on Wednesday.

Ibrahim Al-Assaf, Minister of Finance, said the step follows royal directives to improve the contribution of female human resources to the growth of the Kingdom and addressing the needs of the job market.

The university will house three health colleges, namely the College of Nursing, the College of Pharmacology and the College of Physiotherapy, as well as the College of Administrative Sciences, the Computer and Technology College, the Kindergarten College, the College of Science and the College of Languages and Translation. “The Ministry studied similar projects across the world and consulted the world’s best engineering companies to set up a university with a capacity for 40,000 students by 2010, the largest of its kind,” Al-Assaf said.

The University City, according to Princess Al-Jawhara Bint Fahd Al-Saud, President of the Riyadh University for Girls, will help qualify Saudi females for a global role.

“The University City project in Riyadh,” she said, “will contribute towards fulfilling the university’s ambitious plans for international competition and the development of Saudi girls’ colleges and higher education.”

“The City will have management buildings, a central library, a teaching staff complex, a hospital, health faculties, research centers and clubs,” the Princess said. She added that the project is expected to be completed in three years.

Riyadh University for Girls has also seen the recent opening of several new colleges and faculties which will later be linked to King Saud University in accordance with a decision from the Ministry of Higher Education. “The Riyadh University for Girls admitted 2,500 students this year to the new colleges,” she said.

“With admissions to the already-existing faculties, this means that the university has admitted 61 percent of this year’s high school graduates,” she said.

The Princess highlighted the Saudization rate at the university which stands at 100 percent in management staff and 76 percent in teaching staff.