Proceedings of the 9th International Academic Conference, Istanbul

SAUDI ARABIAN PLAN TO TRANSFER TO KNOWLEDGE SOCIETY

DR. KHALID AL SAUD

Abstract:

Saudi Arabia nowadays is executing plans to transform  it's  economy from being dependent on the wealth of oil reserves to be based on the products of knowledge and technology . Nothing is more difficult than developing knowledge , skills ,and capabilities of people In order to enhance  and stimulate their minds for more discoveries and inventions . Saudi Arabia beside oil has little  economical resources ,therefore Saudis has no choice except to depend on human  minds and capabilities . Development of education in terms of minimizing illiteracy and improving the quality of outcomes to be more competitive with international  standards and measures  are of the most important issues being focused on in this research paper .  King Abdullah project for the development of general education and the establishment of the authority of education evaluation are among the important initiatives to improve the outcomes of the general education .   Expansion of the vocational and technical training, and establishment of joint training programs with  major  manufacturing companies resampling  private sector are among the successful steps to built capabilities of Saudi technicians .  Opening new universities, especially research and technology universities such as king Abdullah university for science and technology KAUST , and initiating king Abdullah program  to financially  support saudi students to complete their graduate and undergraduate studies abroad in distinguished universities in medical, engineering , and computer and communications sciences are among the efforts to empower Saudis to be highly skilled and qualified to execute sophisticated technological  tasks . However, more  than 150,000 students are currently enrolled in king Abdullah  program .  Science and technology incubators such as bader is among other incubators established by king abdulaziz city for sciences and technology to help intellectuals and inventors . It aims to create  enhancing environment  for inventors to transfer their  ideas and inventions to become commercial products.  Many other initiatives such as the custodian of the to holy mosques prize for gifted and inventors and the establishment of the king abdulaziz and his companions establishment for giftness and invention are supporting and magnifying the role of Saudi efforts in the process of  transferring   of the society of saudi arabia to the so called  knowledge based economy. Finally, this paper will focus on the strategy set by the government to achieve it's goal of transfer to knowledge society by the end of 2030.

Keywords: Saudi Arabian, Transfer to Knowledge Society

PDF: Download