Khalid Al-Falih, president and CEO of Saudi Aramco, has launched a youth enrichment program that will see 2 million young Saudis receive critical training by 2020 and encouraged young people to create a bright future.
“It is my firm belief that education is the only way,” Al-Falih said April 17 at the International Exhibition of Higher Education in Riyadh.
The CEO noted past and current achievements regarding education in the Kingdom, including a significant improvement in literacy over the past four decades and the investment of billions of riyals in scholarships and infrastructure. That, however, is not enough to secure success in the future.
With more than 35 percent of the Kingdom’s population 15 years and younger, the challenge today is greater than it has ever been, and the need for a different kind of education is just as great.
“In recent decades, the world has undergone structural changes that in the past took centuries to achieve,” Al-Falih said. “The currency of this new realm is knowledge. He added that the dynamics of this changing world will “require us to radically rethink what we know about education, how we manage it and with whom we partner.”
Read the full speech here.
