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The General Investment Authority (GIA) has granted a licence to a US consortium to build 3,000 schools in different parts of the Kingdom at a total cost of SR13 billion ($3.46 billion).
The project, the largest since the Kingdom opened up for foreign investments less than a year ago, will contribute substantially to expand educational facilities around the country, GIA governor Prince Abdullah bin Faisal bin Turki was quoted as saying in local press reports.
The schools will be constructed on a build-operate-transfer (BOT) basis in favour of the Education Ministry.
The four companies, which will have equal shares in the project, were named as SGI Global, AIU DIV of AIG, STE2EP, and Dowd, Sanford & Mazza. They will set up a new company named Educational Utilities Development Company.
The project's capital is the largest in the Arab world and is expected to encourage more investors into the Kingdom, he added.
Currently, there are more than four million students and 27,000 schools in Saudi Arabia which has a population of 19 million, seven million of whom are expatriates.
The Kingdom has spent more than SR153 billion on education during the fifth Five-Year Plan alone.
The government has set aside a sum of SR53 billion for education and vocational training, including construction of 800 schools, in this year's budget.
