A new educational plan for secondary schools in the Kingdom has envisaged a reduced curriculum to complement new developments in the intermediate and secondary stage curriculums with the number of courses dropping from 21 to 14 in the first year and only 12 courses during the second and third years.

The announcement was made by Khalid Al-Saeed, supervisor of the secondary schools semester educational curriculum program at the General Administration of Education in Riyadh, during the opening ceremony of a workshop in the capital.

The workshop was attended by members and administrators from various departments, including members of the educational media department, managers of student activities department, administrators of student talent and educational supervision departments, management of the direction and guidance department, heads of the Islamic Awareness committee, and representatives of the committee for the development of schools, among others.

According to Al-Saeed, the semester system applies the best attributes of both the regular yearly high school system and the semester system.

He said it will be applied uniformly for both boys and girls, except for one course related to family education and female health for girls, and physical education health for boys. He said that students study general courses during the first year, and can specialize during the second and third year in one of three disciplines: Literature, science, or administration and management.

Several courses have been updated under the new system.

Arabic language material such as grammar, literature, reading and rhetoric have been integrated under one module entitled “Arabic,” while social studies materials (geography, history, educational and national geography) have been combined under a module entitled “Social and National studies.”

Psychology and sociology materials have also been integrated under one course related to psychological and social skills, while a course entitled “Administrative Sciences and Skills” will include material related to management, economics, accounting and others.

He said the general achievements of students will be evaluated through the ongoing evaluation process, while the achievements in the rest of the courses will be evaluated via a written tests.