If you were looking for lucrative opportunities overseas to boost your college’s flagging income, Saudi Arabia would be unlikely to top your list at the moment.

Following the killing of journalist Jamal Khashoggi at the Saudi consulate in Istanbul earlier this month, the controversial Middle Eastern regime has come under intense global scrutiny. And there’s plenty of material to be uncovered: frequent executions, often for non-violent crimes; the banning of public gatherings; widespread discrimination against the Shia Muslim minority…You know, the kind of stuff that tends to happen when your country’s political system is described on Wikipedia as a “unitary Islamic totalitarian absolute monarchy”.

Not surprisingly, the country has had something of a PR problem internationally for a number of years, which it has been trying to tackle. This, of course, reached a somewhat surreal climax last November when Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman had 11 princes and numerous government ministers seized and incarcerated in the luxurious confines of the five-star Ritz-Carlton Riyadh hotel in a bizarre “anti-corruption” clampdown - or power grab, depending on your perspective.

Colleges of Excellence

It may have been less high-profile, but Saudi Arabia’s foray into technical education, dubbed Colleges of Excellence, also attracted plenty of global interest.

The scheme was set up in 2013 with the aim of improving technical and vocational education in the Middle Eastern country. Half of the country’s population is under the age of 25, and its rulers are keen to develop vocational training as part of attempts to diversify its economy. 

International FE providers were invited to take on purpose-built colleges across the kingdom to train Saudi youngsters. More than half of the current partners for the scheme are English FE providers. But the scheme hasn’t been without its controversies, with those involved warning of punitive contracts and low levels of recruitment. In 2015, Pearson pulled out of a contract to run three Saudi colleges.

Not enough interest

But this hadn’t put off the Saudi government, not by a long shot. In January, its Technical and Vocational Training Corporation held an event in London to promote the latest wave of the programme, with seven new contracts up for grabs, as well as the possible retendering of the 31 current college contracts.

Ace. So have UK colleges been queuing up to sign up? Well, not exactly. A Saudi trip for interested parties was planned to take place this spring. FErret understands that, in the end, it was scrapped by the Department for International Trade after it failed to drum up sufficient interest. After the diplomatic fun and games of recent weeks, it’s hard to see an upsurge in demand coming any time soon.