Jeddah, Mar 26: The Cabinet yesterday passed a law that would allow spouses accompanying King Abdullah Foreign Scholarship students to receive special monthly allowances.
“If a scholarship student is accompanied by his Saudi wife at the place of his study he would be entitled to have an extra payment equal to his basic monthly allowance,” the Cabinet said.
The same extra payment shall be given to a scholarship student who is accompanied by his non-Saudi wife at the place of his study.
A female scholarship student who is accompanied by her non-Saudi husband at the place of her study will be entitled to have the same benefit if the marriage took place according to Saudi regulations.
Students thanked Custodian of the Two Holy Mosques King Abdullah for the gesture. “This will benefit a lot of students currently pursuing their higher studies abroad,” said Rayyan Adel Al-Kattan, an engineering student at King Abdulaziz University.
He stressed the importance of studying at reputable international universities, saying it would help Saudi students enhance their academic qualifications, enable them to obtain good jobs and know different cultures.
Enas Ghulam, who has obtained her degree in biostatistics from a US university, said the decision would help Saudi students to concentrate more on their studies as it would help offset their living expenses.
“It will encourage more students to live with their spouses,” she told Arab News. Many students face problems in paying their house rents in major Western cities. “As a result of this special allowance, they will be more comfortable now to stay with their families abroad,” she added.
The Cabinet, chaired by Crown Prince Salman, deputy premier and minister of defense, wished the 24th Arab Summit success. The summit starts in Doha today.
The Cabinet welcomed the decisions of the UN Council for Human Rights, which condemned the Israeli occupation authorities and their practices against the Palestinians.
Saudi Arabia called for a halt to Israel's settlement building in occupied Palestinian territories.
The Cabinet expressed its satisfaction over the issuance of the report of the global rating agency Fitch on the Kingdom’s economy and its sovereign classification of it as ‘AA -’ and raising its future outlook from stable to positive, reinforcing confidence in the strength of the national economy, sustainability of its growth and the diversity of its sectors.
Abdul Aziz Khoja, minister of culture and information, said the Cabinet approved the operational plan for the transfer of tasks, responsibilities, staff, properties, documents and financial allocations of Civil Aviation from the Ministry of Defense to the General Authority for Civil Aviation.
As part of the government’s efforts to find jobs for the increasing number of university graduates, the Cabinet decided to set up a committee or more with not less than three specialists, whose mission would be to consider all aspects of the implementation of the Saudization decisions.
The new committees shall recommend penalties to be imposed on the violators, propose amendment to the Saudization rate that increases annually, specify new jobs and professions to be restricted to Saudis, set out a media plan for the Saudization program in coordination with the Ministry of Culture and Information.
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