AFP

Dubai, Nov 1: The world’s largest university exclusively for women is to come up in Saudi Arabia, with Saudi King Abdullah scheduled to lay the foundation stone.

The Riyadh Women’s University will be the world’s largest institute for higher studies when the project is completed in 2010.

The university will have 13 colleges and will cover an area of eight million square metres north of the Saudi capital. “After we received instructions from higher authorities to establish a full-fledged university, we have consulted international engineering houses for the purpose of designing a world-class campus that can accommodate 40,000 students,” Saudi Finance Minister Ibrahim Al-Assaf told the Arab News newspaper.

The university’s colleges will include those for medicine, dentistry, nursing, naturopathy and pharmacology.

University president Princess Al-Jowhara Fahd, said that the university will usher in a new era for women’s education in the nation.