Minister of Education Dr. Muhammad Al-Rasheed, during a discussion on the Saudi education system by the Consultative Council (Majlis Al-Shura),  told the meeting that the national school syllabus has “several defects” and that his ministry is making every effort to address and eliminate them.  Dr. Al-Rasheed stressed the importance of reviewing and evaluating the general education system with the objective of highlighting its positive features and eliminating its weak points, and expressed the hope that the Shura Council's discussion would help find solutions to the problems that stand in the way of rapid progress in the field of education.

In a related development, Abdulrahman Al-Ahmad, undersecretary for girls' education at the Education Ministry, reported that his department is planning to construct 200 girls' schools in various parts of the Kingdom within the next few years.

The 2003 State Budget has allocated a total of SR1.45 billion [U.S. $0.39 billion] for new school buildings and equipment.

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