The Jeddah Chapter of the Muslim Educational Society will hold a talent-hunt program for Indian school students from Class IX to XII beginning April 10. More than 4,000 students from 10 schools in the city are expected to participate in the program, which is sponsored by the Al-Abeer Medical Group.

The program titled “MES Al-Abeer Educity ESEL Competition 2014,” saw a soft launch on March 14 during a meeting of the MES Executive Committee, which was attended by Alungal Mohammed, CMD of Al-Abeer and chairman of the Rs8 billion Al-Abeer Educity project in the Indian state of Kerala.

“Both boys and girls from Grades IX to XII can participate in the competition,” said Mohamed Ashraf, president of Jeddah MES, adding that it would test their writing and oratory skills. Students who have to sit for the Class XII final exams can also take part.

The program will be held during April-May in collaboration with secondary and senior secondary international Indian schools in Jeddah in three stages: Preliminary; semi final and final.

In the preliminary phase, the participating schools will conduct a screening essay test in English for their contestants on April 10. “We’ll select 20 top essay writers from each category,” Ashraf told Arab News. The top three essay writers from the four categories (IX-X boys and girls and XI-XII boys and girls) will be given prizes.

An elocution competition will be held in the semi-final with 80 participants to pick five students from each category to enter the final stage, which is an open public speaking contest.

“The top winners will be selected from each category considering their total marks,” Ashraf said, adding that individual category winners would also be honored during the final ceremony.

The MES chief disclosed plans to hold the organization’s brand event, GTC (General Talent competition), which has been popular among students and parents in Jeddah, on a grand scale in early 2015.

The MES has left an indelible impression in the field of education and philanthropy through its institutions and scholarships and has been at the forefront of leading a silent educational revolution in Kerala for the last several decades, especially among girls. MES runs 17 postgraduate colleges and 100 schools in addition to other institutions in the health sector.

Al-Abeer Educity in Kerala aims at providing comprehensive education from primary and secondary schooling to professional education in medicine, nursing and engineering. It also plans to establish an international business school and provide a residential, library, health care and extracurricular facilities to students in its 70-acre campus.