Saudi Arabian plans to reform its ailing education system are facing serious challenges from the country’s ultra-conservative clerics, who argue this is a Western sponsored to secularize the conservative kingdom, according to Financial Times.

In 2009, the newly appointed education minister, Prince Faisal bin Abdullah, launched several discussions with parents, teachers, and clerics to discuss his vision of overhauling the education system through more focus on science and mathematics and bringing sports to female students schools. Apart from the King Abdullah University of Science and Technolog (KAUST), all schools and universities in Saudi Arabia are segregated.

“Resistance to change happens when people do not understand what we are doing. We tell them their belief and traditions are not being challenged … When we teach math and science, we have to link them to Islam.” Faisal al-Muaammar, deputy education minister, tells the Financial Times.

However, a meeting between the Prince and some influential clerics on 24 March went sour, with one cleric threatening to convince families to sue the Prince and alleging that his project “corrupt female students and promote mingling of sexes.”

The main push for reform of the education system is the newly launched project Tatweer. With a US$2.4 billion investment, it will train thousands of teachers, many of them in the UK, as well as create new curricula for primary and secondary schools for boys and girls. Tatweer will also install new infrastructure in the schools to promote more use of technology and internet and create ‘smart schools’.

the project, launched in 2006, has already several pilot schools around the kingdom. But reforming education is more than just bringing new fancy gadgets for students and teachers. It remains to be seen whether the training the teachers and other teaching staff are receiving will indeed lead to the much-needed reform of the education system in Saudi Arabia.