International dispute affects about 50 Saudi students in Manitoba

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This article was published 07/08/2018 (2618 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

The Manitoba government is assessing the situation for about 50 post-secondary students in Manitoba from Saudi Arabia, which is reportedly cancelling scholarships for more than 15,000 Saudi students attending university in Canada.

The country is retaliating after Global Affairs Canada tweeted about being “gravely concerned” about the arrests of civil society and women’s rights activists in Saudi Arabia, including jailed blogger Raif Badawi and his sister Samar Badawi. The Saudi foreign ministry called the tweet “unfortunate, reprehensible and unacceptable.” The government expelled Canada’s ambassador, froze any new trade deals and is reportedly nixing the scholarships of Saudis studying in Canada.

“We are sympathetic to the disruption this is having on the lives of students from Saudi Arabia who chose to study in our province,” Education and Training Minister Kelvin Goertzen said in a statement emailed to the Free Press.

Data from the provincial government show 52 students from Saudi Arabia were enrolled in Manitoba post-secondary institutions in 2015-16, 70 per cent of whom were at U of M. The remaining were enrolled at University of Winnipeg (23 per cent) Brandon University (four per cent), Red River College (two per cent) and Université de Saint-Boniface (two per cent).

“Though this represents a small segment of Manitoba’s international student population, Manitoba Education and Training will continue to assess the situation together with those education institutions impacted and the federal government,” the statement from Goertzen’s office said.

In the fall of 2017, 48 students from Saudi Arabia were registered at the University of Manitoba, a fraction of the international student population of 5,268 and a total student population of 29,428, according to a list of students by citizenship provided by the U of M.

“The University of Manitoba is gathering information and will be contacting all students who may be impacted by the recent measures put in place by the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, including the suspension of all Saudi scholarship holders studying in Canada,” a U of M spokesman said.

“There are currently about 50 students from Saudi Arabia enrolled at the University of Manitoba, both at the graduate and undergraduate level, in a variety of faculties,” he said. The U of M is an accredited school of the King Abdullah Scholarship Program but the administration of the scholarship is maintained by the Saudi Ministry of Higher Education and recipient information is not shared with the U of M registrar, the university spokesman said.

King Abdullah Bin Abdulaziz Al Saud created the King Abdullah Scholarship Program in 2005 as a way to establish sustainable human resources in the Saudi kingdom. Since its inception, scholarship students from Saudi Arabia have been sent around the world to study degree programs in diverse areas of specialization.

The scholarship covers living expenses, tuition and other expenses for up to two years for master’s students and four years for PhD students.

— staff