RIYADH: The Saudi Arabian government plans to hire 23.221 new teachers before the start of the new academic year in September, local media is reporting.
The move comes just days after some 2,000 high school teachers were fired or transferred to administrate positions for teaching described by the Saudi Interior Ministry as extremist and potentially encouraging of terrorism.
“Everyone knows about these teachers,” Eman Al Nafjan, a former teacher, told The Media Line. “It used to be very common that teachers were extremists. But this has drastically decreased. Thanks to the education ministry program, word got out that it’s not okay to teach hatred anymore and they fired many teachers.”
Dr. Mustafa Alani, senior advisor and director of terrorism studies at the Gulf Research Centre in Dubai, said that Saudi King Abdullah has been at the forefront of the reforms.
“The Saudi king has taken the lead in reforming the new generation, opening their minds and changing the staff and curriculum,” he told The Media Line. “The whole education system is now a part of the counter terrorism campaign.”
Other Saudi counter-terrorism efforts include a revamp of the judicial system. All courts and public notaries have been instructed to notify the Ministry of Justice of any suspicions they have on either money laundering or financing of terror during real estate deals.
Saudi Arabia also ranked top in the Arab world among countries that have implemented 40 recommendations of The Financial Action Task Force, an inter-governmental body whose purpose is the development and promotion of policies to combat money laundering and terrorist financing.
“He [the king] is facing resistance from the old generation,” Alani said. “So to supervise the educational strategy, he put his son-in-law in charge as a major sign, because the previous minister was unable to do the work.”
Saudi Arabia has been fighting a home-grown terrorist threat which began in 2003.
Groups belonging to or inspired by Al-Qaeda are trying to undermine the monarchy in Saudi Arabia, which has faced criticism because of its alliance with the West and especially with the United States .
Saudi Arabia has arrested and tried thousands of terror suspects and is trying to weed out extremist elements planning terror attacks, recruiting operatives or spreading extremist ideology through the internet.
In August 2009 a suicide bomber almost managed to kill Prince Muhammad Bin Naif, an assistant to the Interior Minister for Security Affairs spearheading the fight against terrorism in the country.
The bomber belonged to Al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula, the new name adopted by the Al-Qaeda branches in Saudi Arabia and Yemen after they merged in January 2009.
