RIYADH: The King Abdulaziz and His Companions Foundation for Giftedness and Creativity has enrolled 8,600 students in the Mawhiba Classes program across 150 schools in 13 cities.
The students, ranging from fourth grade to the third year of secondary school, have passed the Mawhiba intellectual aptitude assessment, the Saudi Press Agency reported on Monday.
The Mawhiba Classes program aims to provide an educational environment that nurtures giftedness and creativity through advanced supplementary curricula tailored to the abilities, needs, interests, and scientific inclinations of students.
Issa Al-Fifi, the director of school partnerships at Mawhiba, said that the curricula resulted from the advanced performance of students.
He added that it focused on developing various aspects of the students’ personalities, encouraging advanced comprehension and understanding of concepts and topics. This was to be achieved by enriching knowledge with further information.
Al-Fifi said: “This enrichment is accomplished through specialized skills in academic subjects, encompassing the grasping of overarching ideas, clarity of concepts, and the deepening of cognitive structures related to academic subjects.”
He highlighted that the program involved instilling values, attitudes, and traits, encouraging actions such as fact-checking and risk-taking, while helping creativity, confidence, intellectual openness and collaboration.
It also aimed at producing diverse skill sets which would enable generalization, deduction, critical thinking, self-reflection, communication, and dialogue.
Al-Fifi added that the advanced supplementary curricula provided by Mawhiba enhanced and expanded upon the offerings of the Ministry of Education.
He said: “These curricula aim to provide gifted students with opportunities to excel in various scientific fields.”
He added that this was accomplished by carefully selecting schools that met specific criteria, including preparedness and ability to create a nurturing environment for gifted students.
Al-Fifi said that teachers at those schools were equipped through professional development programs and specialized training courses in teaching strategies, assessment methods, and digital environments.
The Mawhiba Classes program was launched in the academic year 2009-2010 in partnership with several government and private schools in the Kingdom.
The selection of schools was based on specific criteria, including infrastructure, teaching methods, assessment techniques, learning methods, and teacher qualifications.
The program is regularly updated and expanded, with ongoing monitoring to ensure compliance with the standards and requirements set for Mawhiba classes.
