Prince Faisal bin Abdullah bin Mohammed, Minister of Education, stressed that the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia will be transformed into a knowledge-based society, considering the education as the main pillar in achieving this transformation. In a speech before the London International Technology Education Forum on Wednesday, Prince Faisal said that the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia has strong leadership with vision and ability to make optimal use of human and natural resources of the Kingdom, pointing out that the government of Saudi Arabia has risen to the challenge in the restructuring of the Saudi economy to a knowledge-based, competitive and dynamic society. The Minister of Education pointed out that the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia considers education as a solution. He said: " This realization is stressed by the Kingdom's leadership and Saudi youths are the bearers of the torch of our future. It is therefore imperative to focus on the development of education for the boys and girls in terms of education of the minds and physical education. It is important to have a strong, sustainable, modern and effective educational system qualifying our children for the future. We must cultivate a passion for education in our children to develop themselves into an advanced and a knowledge-based society where education should be the main ingredient to achieve excellence in all aspects of life." Prince Faisal added that the Ministry of Education was founded sixty years ago, indicating that the ministry had developed over this short period of time. He reviewed the developments witnessed by the Ministry of Education through three phases. "In 1953, we started the founding phase and the subsequent stage is access to education where five million students in elementary, intermediate and secondary schools had access to education. This stage witnessed an expansion of schools with more than 33,000 schools employing 500,000 male and female teachers. Thousands of small schools have been established to deliver education to remote areas." He pointed out that Saudi society is a youth society where the proportion of those under 25 years is 65% and the average annual growth rate over the past forty years was 3%. So, a strong and sustainable educational system for the success in the future is very important, he said.
