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| Female Saudi students protest university bias |
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Female students in Saudi Arabia protested against discrimination and an admission system based on injustice at the country’s universities. A number of female students gathered outside King Abdulaziz University in the western city of Jeddah on Saturday to protest refusals by university officials to grant them admission, Arab News reported. The students accused the officials of discrimination in the selection of high school graduates for various university programs. They broke doors and poured into the administrative offices. Saudi Minister of Higher Education Khaled al-Anqari played down the protest gathering by the female students and called it a “rush.” The minister asked the girls and their parents to be patient. “University officials are striving to provide the programs chosen by the applicants,” al-Anqari said. Similar protests have recently been held in universities in the capital Riyadh and the southwestern city of Abha. There have also been reports of protests in the Umm al-Qura University in Mecca and Taibah University in Medina. Most of the protesting students complain that the admission procedures are “unfair” and “favoritism” plays a major role in obtaining a university seat. However, university officials deny any wrongdoing and say they have followed “a first-come first-served policy.” Last week, hundreds of female students in Saudi Arabia stormed a Mecca university to protest an unfair admissions process, a human rights official said. Details of the protest were reported by al-Arabiya on Tuesday. To calm tensions, Badr bin Amad Habib Allah, vice president of the Umm al-Qura University, agreed to admit the students to the College of Community Service and Continuing Education and promised their tuition would be paid by the government, the report said. The protesters accused the university of accepting female students who failed to meet the admission requirements, favoritism, and reserving academic places for relatives and friends. Suhaila Zainal Abidin of the National Society for Human Rights told al-Arabiya the students should have used official channels to gain their rights. She called on the anti-corruption agencies to intervene and put an end to favoritism and unlawful practices in the admission process.   Socialize this Subscribe to our RSS feed to stay in touch and receive all of TT updates right in your feed reader
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