Jarir co-founder to fund new Rhodes scholarship for Saudi Arabia

UK-based Rhodes Trust has announced a new Rhodes scholarship, in partnership with Saudi Arabia’s Jarir Bookstores co-founder Muhammad Alagil and the Saudi Ministry of Education, the trust said in a statement on Monday.

Annual application for the scholarship, which is a postgraduate award, will open later this year. People between the ages of 19 and 25 years are eligible to apply.

Detailed eligibility criteria will be published at www.rhodeshouse.ox.ac.uk/apply.

The annual Rhodes Scholarship for Saudi Arabia will be funded by Alagil, the statement said.

The Rhodes Trust, a prestigious international scholarship program established at Oxford University in 1903, selects creative young leaders with a commitment to serving others, it said.

Saudi Arabia has pitched education as one of the core elements of its Vision 2030 reform program. In the 2018 budget, the government noted that it will continue to raise spending on the basic services, including education.