JEDDAH, 30 May 2007 — The Education Ministry approved recently a measure that would allow students to skip grades if they excel in their exams and score high in IQ tests. The new policy will initially apply only to 7th, 8th and 9th grades. More grades will be added in coming years, education officials say.
“The system will allow those students to benefit their country sooner by graduating at a younger age,” said Nabeel Al-Budair, who is in charge of programs for gifted male students at the Ministry of Education. “The system will be a reward for the gifted and will create a spirit of competition among students.”
Performance will be evaluated in a number of ways, including GPA, IQ tests and general exam results. The psychological ability for students to cope with the environment where their peers will be older will also be evaluated.
“Students take those exams during the summer vacation and, depending on the results, the committee decides whether the student can skip the (next) academic year or not,” said Al-Budair.
The policy will be implemented for boys and girls. “We are moving (both sexes) on the same line,” said Muna Ba-Habri, who is in charge of programs for female gifted students at the Ministry of Education.
Ba-Habri said that skipping grades used to happen under exceptional circumstances when teachers would notice students were more intellectually mature than their peers. She recalled a pre-school girl who was skipped forward to the third grade in 1999.
Ba-Habri says the girl is now in the 11th grade, many years younger than her classmates. Now, the Ministry of Education has formalized a process for advancing gifted students.
Ba-Habri said students must score at least 120 points on IQ tests that are “customized for Saudi use”.
The school’s gifted committee will note the observation on the student. “We then follow up with the student’s performance throughout her education until she graduates to make sure she is coping,” said Ba-Habri.
