UNESCO: Saudi Higher Education Sees Rapid Growth

 The "Global Education Monitoring Report 2026" issued by UNESCO highlighted Saudi Arabia as an exceptional model in higher education enrollment rates, achieving significant progress in developing the university education system over the past decade, based on UNESCO Institute for Statistics data for 2024.

The post-secondary education enrollment rate in Saudi Arabia reached 83.88% in 2024, achieving near gender parity at 1.01, with the number of university students exceeding 1.57 million. The report also showcased notable progress in knowledge economy-related disciplines and significant reduction of the gender gap, decreasing from 20 percentage points in 2006 to 5 points in 2022, and completely disappearing in 2024 with a slight increase in female enrollment rates.

Scholarship Revival

The report discussed the evolution of the Custodian of the Two Holy Mosques Scholarship Program alongside the expansion of Saudi universities in global rankings and the increased establishment of technical colleges. It also highlighted that blended and online education served as effective solutions to facilitate female enrollment in higher education, with their enrollment at Saudi Electronic University doubling between 2018 and 2024.

Saudi Arabia as a Model

This coincided with the Ministry of Education's participation in the launch event of the report at UNESCO headquarters in Paris, where Eng. Saad Al-Ghamdi, Undersecretary for Planning, reviewed the Kingdom's efforts in achieving remarkable progress in higher education through the expansion of universities and technical colleges, development of online education, and the launch of the "Qabul" platform to ease admission opportunities. Technical and vocational education enrollment rates surpassed 30% in 2024 as part of the Human Capability Development Program initiatives.

Academic Achievements

Al-Ghamdi presented the successes of the Scholarship Program, involving over 56,000 scholarship recipients, alongside nearly 200,000 international students benefiting from the "Study in Saudi Arabia" initiative. He also addressed efforts to attract leading international universities to open branches within the Kingdom.

Regarding academic excellence, Al-Ghamdi highlighted the advancement of King Fahd University of Petroleum and Minerals to rank 67th globally according to QS rankings, alongside Saudi universities entering the top 100 globally as per the National Academy of Inventors (NAI) report, based on U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) data for 2025. Additionally, the percentage of female graduates in science and technology fields rose to 45.6% in 2024, reflecting the development of research and innovation environments in the Kingdom. 

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