These schools, staffed by highly skilled faculty members, will be the first to follow a fully-fledged American syllabus, with added emphasis on the all-round development of students.

Sobhy Shabanah, public relations manager at Al-Khaleej, made the announcement here on Monday. “We will open the first school in Dammam on the model of the American education system,” he said. The school will focus on intellectual creativity and innovation that is different from traditional methods of teaching, he added.

Shabanah said the objective of opening this type of school was to prepare and develop students’ abilities and talents to a level not provided by traditional schools. He said that the Rowad Al-Khaleej International School in Dammam would open its doors to students at the beginning of the 2010-2011 academic year. The school in Dammam will initially enroll only 200 students including Saudis, Arabs and expatriates, he said.

He pointed out that the second school will be opened in Riyadh in 2012, adding that Al-Khaleej Training and Education had mapped out a growth strategy to open a number of schools on a staggered schedule.

He also said that the Dammam school would cover an area of 15,000 sq. meters.  Al-Khaleej already has a network of 82 training centers across the Kingdom.