RIYADH: Saudi education officials have recognized 659 public, private, and international schools for achieving the excellence level in the National Program for School Evaluation, Classification, and Accreditation. Yousef Al-Benyan, the minister of education, and Khalid bin Abdullah Al-Sabti, the chairman of the Education and Training Evaluation Commission, recognized the outstanding schools for advancing educational quality, the Saudi Press Agency reported. The ETEC honored the schools participating in the National Program for School Evaluation, Classification, and Accreditation on Monday, during the conclusion of the third edition of the National Forum for School Excellence, Tamayuz 2026, held in Riyadh. The program aims to advance quality in education and training, and monitor it through data and indicators on school performance. Over 27,000 school principals have received online training in self-evaluation, and more than 2,500 school evaluation specialists have been involved. Specialists have visited over 2,200 locations and recorded more than 1.3 million classroom observations since 2024. They have conducted over 1 million interviews with students and staff, completed 235,000 school environment observations, and analyzed over 230,000 school documents over the same period. Al-Benyan said that schools had been honored across the Kingdom for promoting high-quality educational standards and improving learning outcomes. He said the number of schools at the excellence and progress levels had risen to about 14,000 in recent years, indicating significant improvement in the Saudi education system.