Saudi curriculum

Overview

Saudi Arabia's general-education system is run by the Ministry of Education under a single national curriculum that public schools across the Kingdom follow directly; private and international schools operating in the Kingdom still teach the Ministry-approved core subjects (Arabic and Islamic studies, among others) alongside whatever other curriculum they offer. General education runs three stages — primary, intermediate and secondary — on a 6-3-3 pattern, 12 years in total before university. Secondary school was restructured from 2021 onward under Vision 2030: students now share a common first year before choosing one of several specialised pathways for their final two years. This file covers that general national-curriculum structure, not a single exam. The Qiyas-administered university-admission tests (the General Aptitude Test, known as Qudurat, and the Tahsili achievement test) and university admission mechanics are covered in their own programme file; see After school below for how they connect.

Who it covers

Primary and intermediate education are compulsory and free in public schools for children aged 6 to 15. Kindergarten, spanning roughly ages 3 or 4 to 6, is optional and sits before the compulsory stage. Secondary school, covering ages 15 to 18, is not compulsory, though most students who complete intermediate school continue into it. The structure applies to every child schooled in the Kingdom's public system; private and international schools layer their own curriculum on top of the same Ministry-mandated core subjects.

Structure

Primary school

Six years covering Arabic, mathematics, science, Islamic studies, social studies, English (introduced in the early grades), computer skills, art and PE. Progression from one grade to the next is managed by the school itself and recorded in the Ministry's Noor electronic system; there is no separate national exam within primary school.

Intermediate school

Three years that deepen the same core subjects and add more specialised Islamic studies and science content as students move through grades 7 to 9. Intermediate school is the second half of the compulsory stage; completing it is what lets a student move on to secondary school.

Secondary school

Three years, grades 10 to 12. Since the 2021 reform, every student starts with a common first year covering a shared mix of scientific and humanities subjects. For the remaining two years, a student chooses one specialised pathway: a general pathway, or one of four subject-focused pathways — computer science and engineering, health and life sciences, business administration, and Sharia (advanced Islamic studies, including jurisprudence and tafseer). The general pathway is offered at every secondary school; the four specialised pathways are being rolled out school by school rather than nationwide at once, so which ones are available depends on the specific school. The pathway system was piloted in around 100 public schools when it was announced in September 2021 and was set to extend to a five-pathway structure across secondary schools from 2023 onward.

Curriculum standards and reforms

The Ministry of Education sets one national curriculum and syllabus for each stage; public schools do not set their own. The 2021 secondary-school reform described above replaced the older system of separate literary and scientific streams with the common-first-year-plus-pathways structure, with the explicit aim of better preparing students for both university and the labour market under Vision 2030.

A further reform is underway at the legislative level: a new General Education Law (Royal Decree M/36), published on 24 July 2026 and due to take effect around 180 days later, covers schooling from nursery through grade 12. It creates a General Education Affairs Council, chaired by the education minister, to set national education policy and coordinate areas such as admission rules, the academic calendar and the boundary between academic and vocational or technical education. Among its changes, it gives the Ministry explicit authority to create new pathways within general education (including vocational and technical ones) with clearer rules for transferring between them, and it reverts the academic year to a traditional two-semester calendar nationwide. Because this law was not yet in effect at the time this file was reviewed, treat its pathway and calendar details as upcoming rather than current until it takes effect.

Separately, Mawhiba (the King Abdulaziz and His Companions Foundation for Giftedness and Creativity) runs a gifted-education programme rather than a separate curriculum: at selected partner public and private schools, students in grades 4 to 12 who join Mawhiba Classes still follow the Ministry's approved curriculum and take additional STEM enrichment units alongside it, developed in partnership with Johns Hopkins University's Center for Talented Youth.

Assessment approach

Day-to-day assessment is school-based: periodic and final examinations are set and marked at the school level and recorded centrally through the Noor system, the Ministry's electronic platform that has connected schools, education directorates and the Ministry since 2011 and that parents can use to check results and attendance. This school-based assessment is separate from the standardised tests run by the National Center for Assessment (Qiyas) for university admission, which are not part of a school's own grading.

After school

Completing secondary school is the entry point to university admission, but the admission decision itself does not rest on school results alone. Most Saudi universities combine a student's secondary-school grade average with scores from Qiyas's standardised tests — the General Aptitude Test (Qudurat) that every applicant takes, and the Tahsili achievement test that competitive science- and health-related programmes in particular weigh — into a single weighted percentage used for admission. The Qiyas tests, how they are scored, and how universities weight them are covered in their own programme file; this file only covers the school curriculum that leads up to them.

Preparation tips

• Confirm which secondary pathways a specific school actually offers before relying on one being available: the general pathway runs everywhere, but computer science and engineering, health and life sciences, business administration and Sharia are rolled out school by school.

• Treat the common first year of secondary school as a planning year rather than a holding pattern — performance and subject choices made during it affect which specialised pathway is realistically open next.

• Check progress on the 2026 General Education Law before assuming today's pathway line-up, academic calendar or admission rules are final, since the Council it creates can change these once the law takes effect.

• If a target degree programme is competitive, check separately whether it weighs the Tahsili achievement test alongside the Qudurat aptitude test, since this affects how much a student's secondary-school subject choices matter for admission.