It is well known, 90% of Saudi Arabia’s exports are energy products, but the increased exports from other nations will lead to the reduction in the Saudi’s dominant market share (Howells, 2016). This will make other economic issues for the country even worse. This paper will discuss the main economic issue facing Saudi Arabia, which is the poor educational infrastructure.
The poor educational infrastructure of Saudi Arabia is a serious problem that will play out for generations to come. When the population has limited educational skills, it becomes difficult to fill skilled employment positions. As of 2013, 50% of the Saudi population was under the age 25, and this demographic group’s unemployment rate was at 12% (Howells, 2016). This statistic is crucial because it explains how much the lacking educational infrastructure is impacting the youth of the nation and their employment opportunities.
The unemployment rate will continue to increase if changes are not made soon to consider the implications of the evolving modern world. As an example, the oil and gas industries are critical to the Saudi economy, but the recent technological advances have made the oil production process costly for the nation (Howells, 2016). This is probably due to the fact they need to pay foreigners to fill the roles, because of the lacking educational system.
In conclusion, technology can be implemented into each of these problems to solve them for future generations of Saudis. Technology can innovate the educational system in a way more people will earn post-secondary degrees, and fill more technical positions. Technology also has the ability to have children learn from a virtual classroom and allow students in the most remote communities the opportunity to learn. It is clear this problem was not as much of an impact in the past before the globalization occurred during the final decades of the 20th century.
Their way of life is in jeopardy if Saudi Arabia is unable to remain competitive in the energy production industry. Families could suffer greatly because there is not enough focus on training the youth of their nation to become innovative free thinkers looking to retain Saudi Arabia’s place in the front of the international oil industry. There is a great opportunity for Saudi Arabia to focus more on the youth of their nation, in a way that will promote stability to their nation. Saudi Arabia has already implemented many programs for post-secondary education, but it is important to focus more on the primary and secondary levels to have more students attaining higher degrees and gaining the ability to fill skilled employment positions.
References
Howells, N. (2016). Future Directions International. Retrieved from Difficult Times Ahead: The Challenges Facing Saudi Arabia: http://www.futuredirections.org.au/publication/difficult-times-ahead-the-challenges-facing-saudi-arabia/
