14th national program launched to identify gifted Saudi students

RIYADH: A 14th national program to identify and support gifted Saudi students in science and technology was on Wednesday launched at a ceremony in Riyadh.

Registration for the scheme, run by the King Abdulaziz and His Companions Foundation for Giftedness and Creativity (Mawhiba), will remain open until Jan. 15, 2024.

The Saudi Ministry of Education, and the Education and Training Evaluation Commission represented by the National Center for Assessment (Qiyas), are partners in the program.

Saad Awad Al-Harbi, the ministry’s undersecretary for educational programs, said: “This marks the starting point of another journey in discovering gifted students in the Kingdom. Once they are discovered, gifted students go through specific enrichment programs.

“Those students are of great importance and value as we expect they will have a positive major impact on the Kingdom’s future growth.”

Mawhiba ability tests — offered in Arabic and English — will be given at Qiyas centers throughout the Kingdom from Dec. 3 to Jan. 18, with results announced on March 13.

Speaking at the launch, Basil Al-Sadhan, Mawhiba’s deputy secretary-general, noted the high standard of student nominations for the 13th program.

Abdullah Al-Qatie, executive director of Qiyas, said: “This year, we are expanding the scope of discovering gifted students by identifying gifted students in other fields including artistic, oratorical, and any other fields outside the scope of science and mathematics.”

The National Program for Gifted Identification, initiated in 2011, was established on the basis that investing in gifted individuals was key to human prosperity and sustainable development.

More than 500,000 students have taken the Mawhiba ability test, resulting in support for 186,000 of them.