Saudi Arabia set up in 2011 a strategic partnership with Mawhiba, the Ministry of Education, and the National Center for Assessment (Qiyas) in order to establish and implement the National Program for Gifted Identification. This week, the program launched the biggest campaign ever to discover talented students in Saudi Arabia, resulting in the identification of 150,000 candidates from an initial pool of 594,000 students nominated over the last 10 years.
In this 11th year of the program, students partaking will be able to do so remotely, taking part in the annual Mawhiba Multiple Cognitive Aptitude Test. Students are selected from the 4th to the 12th grade and invited to join Mawhiba classes, an academic platform designed to offer students a top-notch learning environment, which includes regular assessments, tests, workshops, professional development guidance, and after-school STEM programs, so that they can unlock their full potential.
Speaking at the inaugural event at Mawhiba’s headquarters in Riyadh, the organization’s secretary-general, Dr. Saud Al-Mathami, said “It’s an example of the integrative work between the government establishments […] The program will also be available at the headquarters of the National Center for Assessment for the first time, in a new experience to implement the program in a manner that meets the requirements of the times. […] One of the most important conditions of excellence and creativity is not only the possession of talent, but also hard work to achieve the highest degrees of success.”
Mawhiba, also known as The King Abdulaziz and His Companions’ Foundation for Giftedness and Creativity, was launched in 1999 with the aim to provide skills, training, and internship opportunities to gifted students across Saudi Arabia. The organization, along with other key initiatives, are part of the Kingdom’s ongoing efforts to nurture what it believes to be the real wealth of any society: human capital. These programs have been designed to identify talented female and male students and invest in their talents, as this is what advances a nation’s scientific, technical and economic status.
