| Sulaiman Al Rajhi Colleges Kuliat Sulaiman Al Rajhi | |
|---|---|
|
كلية سليمان الراجحي |
|
| Established | 2009 |
| Type | Private Non-profit Research University |
| Chairman | HE Sheikh Sulaiman Abdul Aziz Al Rajhi |
| President | HE Professor Dr. Saleh Bin Abdullah Al Damegh |
| Location | Al Bukayriyah, Al-Qassim, Saudi Arabia |
| Campus | Urban 10,200 hectares (25,000 acres) |
| Colours | Royal Blue and White |
| Nickname | SRC, SRU. |
| Website | Official Youtube channel |
Sulaiman Al-Rajhi Colleges (officially abbreviated as SRC) (Arabic: كلية سليمان الراجحي) is a newly established private, non-profit, research university, comprising three graduate colleges: Medicine, Nursing and Applied Medical Sciences as well as a state-of-the-art University Hospital. The colleges were founded by the Sulaiman Bin Abdul Aziz Al Rajhi Charitable Foundation and is located in Al Bukayriyah, Saudi Arabia. [1]
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Sulaiman Al Rajhi Colleges aims are to produce highly trained and specialized cadres of manpower as required for development. The project of establishing the Medical, Nursing and Applied Medical Sciences Colleges with a University Hospital is envisaged to further improve the health sciences education, patient care and biomedical research to match international standards. [2]
The colleges and the hospital are conceived as “Islands of Excellence” to keep pace with the knowledge explosion, technological advancements and scientific breakthroughs. It is their vision to strive for international distinction in education and research as well as being at the forefront of community development and innovation.
The rationale behind establishing the colleges is due to a calculated estimate demand for higher education in the kingdom. According to studies conducted, there is a considerable gap in the market for higher education. This gap increases steadily with population growth. Similarly there is an increase demand for primary healthcare centers and hospital beds. These factors substantiate the need to establish a healthcare center as well as the colleges to make healthcare accessible to all and bridging the gap in higher education.[3]
Establishing the colleges in the Al-Qassim state will provide highly specialized services so that patients would not have to be referred to major cities like Riyadh. Through the establishments of the colleges, it is expected to have a major economic impact in terms of preparing the qualified workforce. The project is likely to have a social impact as well, particularly in reducing the unemployment rate, raising education efficiency, and contributing to the social development by providing cost-effective education opportunities.
Currently SRC's campus is on the King Abdul Aziz Street, Bukairyiah, 20 km from Qassim Regional Airport. The college will soon relocate to its first-class main campus near the Madinah-Riyadh Highway, approximately 7 km from its current location.
SRC's future campus is specifically located beside the highway connecting Riyadh and Madinah and sits approximately 370 km from the capital city of Riyadh. When completed it will cover an area of 10,200 hectares and will provide unparalleled services to members of the community as well as students. [4]
A University Hospital with the capacity to hold 700 beds will be established in the near future and it will cover a total area of 200,000m2. The University Hospital will be dedicated to providing the highest quality healthcare in the treatment and prevention of illnesses. In addition, great emphasis will be placed on the development and dissemination of new knowledge through the use of cutting-edge technology and advance research. It will function as a teaching hospital, serving all the clinical activities and training for the Medical, Nursing and Applied Medical Sciences Colleges, as well as operating commercially serving the community.
There will be housing reserved for married and non-married students and staff of SRC. Housing has been designed to a very high level of implementation. The services are integrated to serve not only SRU but all the of Al Qassim region because there will be an international school, integrated sports city and other facilities.
As of January 2008, Professor Dr. Saleh Bin Abdullah Al Damegh was named the chief supervisor and founding dean of Sulaiman Al Rajhi Colleges. In his concluding statement Sheikh Al Rajhi indicated that the general supervision of the university has been commissioned to Prof. Dr. Saleh Bin Abdullah Al Damegh, for his long academic background and wide experience in the field of medicine.[5] Prof. Saleh is chairman of the Scientific Board of Radiology for the Saudi Council for Health Specialties. He was professor of Medicine and founding dean of Qassim University, School of Medicine from August 2000 to November 2006.
In the pursuit of creating the "Islands of Excellence," Sulaiman Al Rajhi Colleges signed a memorandum of understanding under the patronage of H.E. Dr. Khalid bin Mohammad Al Angary, the Saudi Minister of Higher Education, H.E. Ms. Maria Josephina Arnoldina, Netherlands Minister of Economic Affairs, and in the presence of Dr. Mohammed Al Ohali, the ministry's deputy for education.[6]
With the signing of the contracts SRC, UM and Maastricht UMC+ have agreed upon long-term international co-operation that includes UM and Maastricht UMC+ overseeing the academic and medical aspects of the colleges. Under the agreement, staff of Maastricht University will visit SRC to train and provide logistical support and vice versa. The scope of the convention includes providing quality assurance programs for the colleges and University Hospital and certification on a common global level between the two universities on the undergraduate and graduate studies. In addition to that, Sulaiman Al Rajhi will serve as the agent and sole representative of the University of Maastricht in the Middle East.
The agreement between KPMG and SRC forms the basis of an extensive and intensive effort by the University and KPMG to build world-class organizational and operational capacity of SRC which will help it play a key role in the development and enhancement of the education sector in Saudi Arabia.
KPMG was selected for this major project based on its strong track record in the education sector in the Kingdom and internationally. KPMG has brought to the table its vast global experience along with its local team to provide Sulaiman Al-Rajhi Colleges with a unique offering that will ensure a world-class university. The university seeks to primarily focus on delivering medical and health science education and will include a university hospital to serve the local community as well as the doctors-to-be.[7]
Over the next eleven years, UM staff and faculty members will visit SRC on a regular basis to train and provide support to SRC staff members and students. Likewise, SRC will send its staff and faculty members to the Netherlands for training purposes.
So far UM has visited SRC on two occasions, conducting problem-based learning (PBL) workshops intended to expose the students to the methodology. The most recent visit was on July 2010, during which a five-day workshop was carried out with the main focus being honing the students skills to using the methodology.
The colleges are primarily health and research centered and, as such, English is the medium of instruction at SRC. The medical education of SRC is based upon the medical curriculum of Maastricht University[8] therefore students enrolled at Sulaiman Al Rajhi Colleges will be taught using the education methodology of problem-based learning (PBL). In line with Maastricht's PBL philosophy, SRC believes that the students should be personally responsible for their academic education.[9]
SRC believes that PBL is more than a methodology fit for the academic setting, with it they seek to promote lifelong learning among our students while instilling a commitment to serve the communities where they live and work. Furthermore, Mr. Al Rajhi clarified that "the medical college of Maastricht University was the first to apply problem-based learning (PBL) to its medical college, which currently resembles the ultimate educational program worldwide as the aspiration of Al Rajhi University." Maastricht University was the first university to apply PBL to all of its faculty in Europe and the second worldwide after Canada.
The curriculum will be tailored to the context of Saudi Arabia so that it meets the needs of the state and its citizens. Students will learn in a variety of training environments beyond the traditional lecture hall. They will be exposed at an early stage to various scenarios: a patient's bedside, side-by-side with a preeminent researcher in the laboratory, alongside a stream in rural Qassim. Wherever and whenever possible, the college will give students opportunities to work in both rural and urban settings, planting a seed for future dedication to community service.
The college education encompasses a range of undergraduate and graduate programs to prepare practitioners for roles that complement physicians, nurses and other health care specialists.
The medical programme of the Sulaiman Al Rajhi Colleges is supervised by the Faculty of Health, Medicine and Life Sciences (FHML) of Maastricht University (MU), which is ranked the best medical programme in the Netherlands and is internationally recognized for excellence in education.
The medical programme delivered by SRC is identical to the programme delivered by FHML. MU guarantees that SRU students who are accepted to continue their medical studies at FHML can do so at the same level they have reached at SRC and with full recognition of the credits they have earned at SRC.
Graduates from the Faculty of Medicine of SRC will have achieved the same final objectives of medical education as FHML graduates. Hence the Bachelor’s and Master’s degrees granted by SRU are equivalent to the medical degrees granted by MU. In confirmation of this MU grants permission to SRU to use the name of Maastricht University/Faculty of Health, Medicine and Life Sciences and the UM logo on the certificates awarded by the Sulaiman Al Rajhi Colleges for successful completion of the bachelor and master examination.
The SRC Medical College will begin its first ever problem-based learning (PBL) medical program in late September 2010, in accordance to Maastricht University new academic year of 2010-2011. The medical college would comprise the following departments:[10]