JEDDAH: Saudi students abroad can change their country of study as a result of political upheavals or natural disasters, Abdullah Al-Mousa, Deputy Minister of Higher Education for Students Abroad, has said. Al-Mousa told Al-Hayat Arabic daily that the Ministry of Higher Education had set up a special work team to put in place a system for such cases and facilitate student transfers to other foreign countries for permanent or temporary studies at private or government-run universities. “They are still coming from Yemen, however,” he said. “The work team is currently looking at 855 such requests to find a means to transfer them to universities either in the Kingdom or abroad. The measures apply to students of all levels.” He said that many such requests had been made to the ministry, but that with the return to normality in countries such as Egypt and Japan requests from those countries have stopped. “Any student can transfer their studies from countries experiencing political problems or natural disasters once they are admitted on similar certified courses in places like America, Canada, South Korea, China, Italy, Germany, and other countries,” Al-Mousa said. “If students are unable to obtain admittance to another university then they can contact their Cultural Attaché and the issue will go to the ministry where the work team will try and find a suitable solution.”
