REUTERS: RIYADH - Accused of promoting the religious radicalism that inspired the Sept. 11 attacks, Saudi Arabia has stepped up efforts to reform its school curriculum, but clerical opposition means change will be slow, analysts say.
King Abdullah appointed a new team to lead the education ministry this year in a surprise reshuffle in the conservative Islamic state, where reformers say promises of change when Abdullah took the throne in 2005 have amounted to little.
Prince Faisal bin Abdullah, a former intelligence official, took over as education minister with Faisal bin Muammar, who headed a body set up in 2003 to promote social and economic reforms, as his deputy.
"We have been calling for such changes for a long time," said Mohammed Youssef, a professor of education at King Abdulaziz University who wrote a book in 2004 on restructuring the Saudi education system.
The United States zeroed in on Saudi schools after it emerged that 15 of the 19 attackers who killed some 3,000 people there on Sept. 11, 2001 were Saudi. They acted in the name of an Islamist group, al Qaeda, headed by a Saudi, Osama bin Laden.
Foreign and Saudi critics said Saudi educational material permitted the killing of non-Muslims and promoted the idea of cleansing Muslim countries from Western cultural influences. >>> By Asmaa Alsharif | Wednesday, April 15, 2009
