Education Services in Saudi Arabia

With the Saudi Arabian government committed to improving educational facilities for the Kingdom, a large number of new schools have been built in recent years. There are publicly run state schools available for Arab students, but foreign children do not normally attend these schools. Instead, the foreign working population generally send their children to privately run International schools. Most of these private schools in Saudi Arabia use the English language as a language of instruction. There are private International schools that cater to children of foreign worker communities from many countries, including the United States, the United Kingdom, France, Germany, India, Pakistan, the Philippines, Japan, and others.

 

There is pre-kindergarten and kindergarten for children aged 3 to 6 years old, elementary school for students aged 6 to 11 years old, secondary school for youths aged 12 to 14 years old, and high school for those who are from 15 to 18 years old. Admission to one of these schools may require an interview with both the parent and the child, and an academic examination on the part of the child only. Most of the time, the hours of the student's school day in Saudi Arabia run from 8 in the morning up until 2:30 in the afternoon.