Saudi Arabia opened its first co-educational university on Wednesday, a high-tech campus with massive funds, which reformers hope will spearhead change in the Islamic state.
Western diplomats hope the King Abdullah University of Science and Technology (KAUST), which has attracted more than 70 professors and 800 students from abroad, will usher reform after recent setbacks such as shelving municipal elections planned for this year and canceling cultural events opposed by clerics.
King Abdullah was to inaugurate late on Wednesday the university 80km north of Jeddah in the presence of regional leaders, Western officials and Nobel laureates.
The 85-year-old monarch has promoted reforms since taking office in 2005 to create a modern state, stave off Western criticisms and lower dependence on oil.
But he faces resistance from conservative clerics and princes in Saudi Arabia, one of the world’s top oil exporters.
Al-Qaeda militants launched a campaign against the state in 2003, blaming the royal family for corruption and its alliance with the US. It was mainly Saudis who carried out the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks against US cities.
Officials who back Abdullah fear that without reforms young people will be drawn to militancy in the future.
Supporters are presenting KAUST as a tangible gain for the king’s plans, which have included more long-term projects such as an overhaul of courts, the education system and building “economic cities” to create jobs for the young population.
“KAUST is eventually some tangible result after so much was planned and so little done,” said a Western diplomat in Riyadh.
Former US diplomat John Burgess wrote in his Saudi blog Crossroads Arabia: “There is truly no other university in the world so well-equipped. Anywhere. The issue is, of course, what is to be done with the equipment and that remains to be seen.”
One of the main goals is to produce Saudi scientists but so far locals, who had to compete in a tough admission, make up only 15 percent of students coming from 61 countries, KAUST president Choon Fong Shih of Singapore said.
“There is no doubt that many of the talented Saudis will enroll at this university,” said Oil Minister Ali al-Naimi, adding that KAUST would impact Saudi society as a whole.
Located next to the Red Sea village of Thuwal, the 93km2 campus has lured scientists from abroad with luxury packages and a life far from the reality of the Islamic state where clerics have wide powers over society in an alliance with the Saudi ruling family.
With more than 70 green spaces, gyms, clinics, spacious residential districts and staff driving around in electric cars there is no reason to leave the campus, which is based far away from the prying eyes of the religious police.
KAUST is run by state oil company Aramco, which has a similar liberal enclave at its headquarters in Dhahran on the Gulf coast. It is outside the control of the education ministry.
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