Major wealth management company, SEDCO Holding, has launched its flagship Riyali CSR program that addresses the need to educate the Saudi population on financial literacy and empower people with the personal financial skills required to achieve a desirable standard of living. The first phase of this program targets college students.
Announcing the launch, Adnan A. Soufi, CEO of SEDCO Holding, said, "SEDCO is a corporation that believes in CSR as one of its core values. Drawing on our 35 years of CSR experience and extensive financial expertise, we have selected financial literacy as our flagship social responsibility initiative. The program aims to enable upcoming generations with crucial skills to manage their personal income.
"In this regard, SEDCO conducted a nationwide survey involving a thousand young Saudi nationals to determine the market needs. Results showed only 11 percent keep track of their spending, although 75 percent thought they understood the basics of money management," Soufi added.
An in-depth analysis of SEDCO Holding's survey revealed that 45 percent of youngsters do not save any money at all, while only 20 percent save 10 percent of their monthly income. In terms of spending habits, the study indicated that items such as mobile phones and travel account for nearly 80 percent of purchases. Regarding financing their lifestyle, 46 percent of youth rely on their parents to fund big ticket items. Fortunately, 90 percent of the respondents stated that they are interested in increasing their financial knowledge.
Riyali will reach 50,000 beneficiaries over the next five years, aiming to impact 15,000 university students in its first phase.
Hasan Al-Jabri, CEO of SEDCO Capital and SEDCO board member, said: "We here at SEDCO Capital believe that the value of any economy is the individual and he alone is able to extract the wealth of the land and use its resources to supplement technologies, industry, agriculture and various aspects of science and the arts."
Riyali program to educate Saudis on financial literacy
Riyali program to educate Saudis on financial literacy
Saudi school evaluation framework sets global benchmark, says expert
As part of the ongoing technical cooperation between the Education and Training Evaluation Commission and the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development, the OECD expert team recently concluded its visit to ETEC’s headquarters in Riyadh.
The visit featured exchanges of expertise and in-depth discussions on technical frameworks for measuring learning outcomes and evaluating schools within Saudi Arabia’s K–12 education system.
OECD delegates commended ETEC’s rapid development and institutional maturity, highlighting the significant progress made in evaluating K–12 education. They were particularly impressed by how the commission achieved such swift and inclusive progress, especially given the large scale of Saudi Arabia’s education system.
This was emphasized by Dr. Harold Hislop, head of the OECD Expert Team and former chief inspector for school evaluation in Ireland (2010–2020), who praised the scale and pace of Saudi Arabia’s school evaluation efforts.
He said: “The new school evaluation system that you've put in place is enormously impressive; the scale of being able to evaluate and work with over 23,000 schools in less than a two-year period! No other country in the world that I know of has been able to do anything like that on that scale and at that speed.”
He added: “We're learning an awful lot about what ETEC is doing so we can go to other countries with that information. You have developed a complete school evaluation process in less than five years. Now, no other country in the world has done that.”
He praised the evaluation model developed by ETEC to align with the Saudi context, saying: “And I thought there was one really impressive thing that struck me so strongly today. When talking to school leaders, they said, we now have an evaluation system that is a Saudi evaluation system for Saudi schools. It understands our context, it understands the circumstances of our schools, and it gives advice that suits our system. That's an enormous achievement.”
Expressing his appreciation for the commitment demonstrated by stakeholders at all levels to Saudi Arabia’s Vision 2030, Dr. Hislop remarked: “I would say I'm impressed by your commitment and vision to drive improvement, to make education and access to good quality education a driver to improve the lives of children and Saudi citizens for the future. That's a really strong commitment that I hear from everyone that I've met. It links to your Vision 2030 across the Kingdom, but it's consistent right the way through your organization.”
He highlighted the comprehensive nature of ETEC’s system and its efforts to engage parents in monitoring their children’s academic progress through the “Mustaqbalhum” app.
“I think, some countries have definitely developed some apps, or other applications, that do put some of the results of school evaluations into the hands of parents ... and some information. But I've never seen anything as comprehensive as yours, where you're linking student test data from the NAFS tests. You're providing information about your judgments on schools, you're providing enrollment data, and so on, in one system.
“Now, I'm not aware of any other system that has managed to do that. So maybe you'll start selling the technology to other people, because certainly they will be very interested in seeing it,” he added.
It is worth noting that the School Evaluation System for public, private, and international schools in the Kingdom is a comprehensive and integrated framework designed to assess the performance of K–12 schools.
It follows a continuous scientific methodology that gathers performance data using a range of tools and methods, analyzes the results against clearly defined standards and benchmarks, and provides actionable recommendations for improvement and development.
The system aims to promote a standards-based evaluation culture in schools, support continuous school improvement, and help schools achieve targeted learning outcomes.
It also encourages the participation of all stakeholders in evaluating and enhancing school performance, assists schools in identifying innovative solutions to meet their specific needs, and helps them optimize the use of available human and material resources. Furthermore, it provides comprehensive and reliable performance data that supports decision-making and enables effective education system management.
What distinguishes the Saudi evaluation system is its implementation through the Tameyuz digital platform, which oversees all evaluation processes and procedures.
Through this platform, more than 7 million surveys have been distributed, over 913,000 classroom observations conducted, more than 518,000 interviews completed, and over 146,000 users, including education personnel and officials, have accessed the system.
Tameyuz platform generates reports at multiple levels, serving national education policymakers, regional directorates, local education offices, schools, and parents. To date, it has produced more than 23,000 school evaluation reports and over 18,000 performance scorecards linked to the National Assessment for Schools or NAFS.
A key factor behind the success of the Saudi system is the strong partnership between ETEC and the Ministry of Education. This collaboration operates within a joint governance framework that balances institutional independence with coordinated implementation, enabling both entities to fulfill their respective responsibilities effectively in pursuit of a shared goal: enhancing education quality and advancing the Kingdom’s ambitious national objectives.
As part of its efforts to evaluate and enhance K–12 education, ETEC implements NAFS. The NAFS assessments are administered in grades three, six, and nine, and play a pivotal role in measuring and improving student academic achievement, promoting school excellence, and fostering constructive competition among schools, education offices, and regional education directorates.
NAFS assessments are carried out through a collaborative framework and ongoing coordination between ETEC and the Ministry of Education, aiming to achieve national goals — most importantly, the targets of Saudi Vision 2030 and the Human Capability Development Program, one of its flagship initiatives.
In 2025, NAFS was implemented for the fourth consecutive year, covering 1,358,224 students across 25,982 schools, including early childhood, elementary, and middle schools.
Launched in the 2023–2024 academic year, the School Evaluation and Classification Program has achieved extensive national reach. To date, 100 percent of schools (more than 24,000) have completed their self-evaluations, which serve as a foundational step in the evaluation process.
Following this, external evaluations have been conducted for over 23,000 schools, representing more than 93 percent of all public and private elementary, middle, and secondary schools across the Kingdom. These site visits were carried out by the External School Evaluation Team.
These evaluations have reached all corners of the Kingdom. More than 800 schools are visited weekly, spanning over 2,230 cities, towns, and rural communities, accessed by paved roads, desert routes, and even by sea when necessary. The operations are coordinated through a centralized command center, which has managed over 460,000 evaluation trips nationwide.
As of now, a total of 21,716 schools have been officially classified, including 10,955 girls’ schools and 10,761 boys’ schools.
ETEC has also launched the Mustaqbalhum app to strengthen parental engagement in their children’s educational journey. The app provides parents with valuable information and tools to enhance awareness, monitor academic performance, and assess skills and abilities, ultimately supporting their children’s overall development and future success.
The application includes the Your Child’s Future assessment tools, which are designed to diagnose and measure children’s cognitive and academic abilities.
These tools are organized into two main categories. The first category, Achievement Assessments, consists of instruments that evaluate students’ academic knowledge and skills.
For example, it includes the Arabic Language Assessment for young learners, a brief, optional assessment that is not directly linked to the school curriculum and is intended to measure children’s language proficiency.
This category also features the Qudrati (My Abilities) Assessment, a suite of tools that assess general cognitive abilities such as comprehension, analysis, reasoning, and application. It focuses on identifying students’ learning potential and simulates the General Aptitude Test used as a college entrance exam by all public universities in Saudi Arabia.
The second category includes Practice and Training Assessments, which are designed to help students prepare for college entrance exams. These assessments include practice for the General Aptitude Test, which evaluates learning-related abilities such as analytical and reasoning skills in secondary school graduates seeking admission to higher education institutions.
They also offer training for the Achievement Test, which measures academic achievement across various secondary school subjects and is required for university admission in Saudi Arabia. In addition, the tools provide practice for the STEP (Standardized Test of English Proficiency), which assesses students’ English language proficiency across key measurable language skills.
ETEC prepares detailed reports on its various evaluation processes and shares them with the Ministry of Education and other relevant stakeholders.
Each school receives an individual performance report based on school evaluation and classification standards.
In addition, the commission provides schools, education directorates, and their offices with student performance scorecards from the national assessments.
ETEC also compiles regional education reports for the Kingdom’s governorships.
Moreover, the commission provides the Ministry of Education with comprehensive individual-level data and key educational performance indicators.
To maximize the impact of its evaluation, assessment, and accreditation activities, the commission has recently developed the Education and Training Status Room, a national developmental tool designed to leverage the full potential of data across all levels of education.
The platform is designed to provide a comprehensive overview of the state of K–12 education, higher education, and training, along with in-depth analytical use cases that address key policy questions and inform education and training practices.
It offers policymakers, educational leaders, and stakeholders real-time, continuous access to the latest data and insights, enhancing transparency and improving the effectiveness and timeliness of decisions at both the strategic and operational levels.
The platform is distinguished by its comprehensive data presentation and continuous automated updates. It is also designed with a dynamic and flexible architecture that enables decision-makers to explore trends and patterns that support both strategic and operational decisions in education and training.
In addition, the platform offers a holistic view of all aspects of education and training, featuring a range of in-depth analyses that address key questions related to improving educational quality, anticipating impacts on the economy and national development, and creating new opportunities for targeted discussions and deeper data exploration.
Work on the platform began in early 2025. It currently contains more than 200,000 data points detailing the state of K–12 education, higher education, and training, along with 19 in-depth analyses that incorporate over 45,000 descriptive and inferential statistics.
Saudi Arabia’s transformation boosts investor confidence
More than 300 global institutional investors met with all seven bourses from the GCC and over 100 GCC corporates at HSBC’s GCC Exchanges Conference in London last week. The event comes as global economic uncertainty reshapes capital flows, with global investors exploring new opportunities in the Gulf for long-term, reform-driven growth, and maturing capital markets.
Now in its fourth year, the conference focused on the region’s resilience. Saudi Arabia was a main feature of the first two days of the conference, where guest speakers included Minister of Investment of Saudi Arabia Khalid bin Abdulaziz Al-Falih, and Deputy Market Institutions at Saudi Arabia’s Capital Market Authority Raed Alrashed Alhumaid.
Having registered a 3.4 percent year-on-year increase in GDP in Q1, Saudi Arabia’s non-oil growth is tracking ahead of already strong initial estimates. Discussions focused on plans for the Kingdom’s services and non-oil manufacturing sectors, as well as efforts to continue liberalizing financial market infrastructure.
Faris AlGhannam, chief executive and board member, HSBC Saudi Arabia, said: “The resilient activity in Saudi Arabia’s private and public markets, as well as the breadth of sectors coming to market, is a reflection of investors’ confidence in the Kingdom’s long-term potential despite testing markets.”
Mohammed Al-Rumaih, chief executive, Saudi Exchange, said: “The global investor appetite for the Saudi capital market continues to deepen, driven by the Kingdom’s ongoing economic transformation. At the Saudi Exchange, we remain committed to enabling access, enhancing market infrastructure, and fostering transparency to support diversified capital formation across sectors. The strong engagement witnessed this year at the GCC Exchanges Conference further reflects the growing international confidence in the Saudi market and its central role in the Kingdom’s national transformation roadmap.”
Although domestic market liquidity and oil-dependency have been traditional constraints for equity investors, HSBC analysts predict that the combination of IPOs and secondary listings from the Kingdom as well as the removal of foreign ownership limits could lift Saudi Arabia’s weight in emerging market benchmarks.
Saudi Arabia led listing activity in the region during the first quarter, despite a slowdown in issuances globally, with 12 IPOs across sectors such as real estate, healthcare, financial services, and retail.
AlGhannam added: “Global investors are recalibrating for resilience and the GCC’s balance sheet strength and sophisticated financial markets ecosystem make it a capital magnet.”
This year, for the first time, HSBC brought together emerging markets macro strategists with GCC attendees, as EM investors dial up their exposure to the Gulf’s capital markets driven by strong GDP projections relative to the broader EM pool.
Saudi Electronic University archives top global ranking
The Saudi Electronic University achieved a notable milestone by advancing in the 2025 Times Higher Education Impact Rankings, issued by the British Times organization, which assesses universities worldwide based on their commitment to the UN Sustainable Development Goals.
The university ranked 17th among 34 participating Saudi universities and was placed in the 601–800 global category out of 2,318 universities worldwide.
This ranking is considered one of the leading international indicators for measuring universities’ impact on their communities through their contributions to achieving the SDGs. The university participated in achieving five key goals: quality education, good health and well-being, decent work and economic growth, reduced inequalities, and partnerships for achieving these goals.
This progress reflects the university’s continued commitment to integrating sustainability concepts into its academic and research environment and to enhancing its contribution to addressing societal, environmental, and economic challenges in support of Saudi Vision 2030.
SEU’s President Dr. Mohammad bin Yahya Mardi said that the achievement is a continuation of the unlimited support from the Kingdom’s wise leadership and the efforts of all university staff.
Founded in 2011 by royal decree, SEU has a unique vision: to create a flexible, world-class learning environment for students who need a non-traditional educational path. This electronic university is part of the Kingdom’s initiative to modernize its education sector while maintaining its commitment to excellence.
The university operates under a blended learning model, incorporating online education with periodic in-person sessions to ensure a rich and interactive academic experience.
Riyadh hosts inaugural editions of hardware fair, sports show
Inaugural editions of the International Hardware Fair Saudi Arabia and FSB Sports Show Riyadh were held at the Riyadh International Convention and Exhibition Center from June 16-18, welcoming industry professionals from across the Kingdom. The events, jointly organized by dmg events and Koelnmesse, brought together international and regional manufacturers, suppliers and sector specialists under one roof. The openings were marked by the presence of Gerald Böse, president and CEO, Koelnmesse, and Matt Denton, president, dmg events.
Böse said: “Launching both FSB Sports Show Riyadh and International Hardware Fair Saudi Arabia with dmg events marks a significant step in connecting global expertise with Saudi Arabia’s rapidly advancing sectors. From sports infrastructure to industrial tools, these events reflect the Kingdom’s Vision 2030 ambitions and the strong demand for specialized, future-ready solutions.”
Denton said: “The success of both launches demonstrates the market’s need for focused, high-impact trade events. Partnering with Koelnmesse has allowed us to create specialized, niche trade events that not only highlight industry progression but also enable real business exchange, directly supporting Saudi Arabia’s development goals under Vision 2030.”
Making its debut in the Kingdom, International Hardware Fair Saudi Arabia brought together more than 200 exhibitors and brands across product sectors such as tools, fasteners, building materials, construction equipment and industrial supplies. Some of the exhibiting brands include Albawardi Tools and Hardware, Truper, Yato Tools, Genergy Power Products, Gong Fong Enterprise and Pecol. The event is designed to meet the procurement needs of professionals across the construction, manufacturing and infrastructure industries.
Modeled after the long-established EISENWARENMESSE — International Hardware Fair Cologne, the Riyadh edition provided direct access to sourcing opportunities for professionals in Saudi Arabia’s rapidly growing hardware and tools sectors. The event also included live product demonstrations at the Demo District; Guess the Gear, where participants identify tools by sound for a chance to win prizes; and the Hardware Hero Challenge, featuring one-handed hammering and speed drilling competitions.
Running alongside the International Hardware Fair Saudi Arabia and building on the legacy of the renowned FSB Cologne, FSB Sports Show Riyadh spotlighted sports infrastructure, fitness courts, leisure facilities and public spaces. With more than 200 exhibitors and brands including Greenfields, Kotobuki Seating Group, Soft Surfaces General Contracting, Syngenta Asia Pacific, Yardex and Cypex, the show supports the Kingdom’s plans to develop inclusive and modern environments for community wellness and active living.
Combining advanced engineering with luxury features, the event attracted visitors to TeleiosX, providing a hands-on opportunity to engage in competitive, full-motion racing directly on the show floor. Another standout feature drawing strong visitor interest was the Virtual Golf Simulator, presented by Marafei Almarefah, which blends sport and technology through an interactive experience using VR, AR and advanced projection systems.
A key feature of the event, the FSB Sports and Leisure Summit, concluded successfully on the opening day, bringing together high-profile speakers from across the sports, wellness and urban planning spectrum. One of the highlights was a panel discussion on designing facilities for sustainability and wellness, where the panelists collectively emphasized the need to integrate resource-efficient systems and wellness-driven design for future-ready sports infrastructure.
Bupa CareConnect serves guests of God in Mina
Bupa CareConnect, the healthcare arm of Bupa Arabia, launched its first-ever field-based clinics in Mina during this year’s Hajj. The “Bupa Clinics” initiative marked a landmark expansion of Bupa Arabia’s services beyond corporate campuses, bringing integrated, tech-enabled medical care directly to pilgrims during one of the most spiritually significant gatherings in the world.
As part of its social responsibility strategy, Bupa Clinics was launched in coordination with Urgent Care Centers under the supervision of the Ministry of Health. The clinics provided primary healthcare services to all pilgrims — both Bupa members and non-members. Strategically positioned near essential amenities such as Al-Dawaa Pharmacy, the clinics ensured accessible, responsive care to support the well-being of pilgrims within the sacred sites.
Operating 24/7 throughout the Hajj season, the clinics recorded a total of 1,368 medical interactions. Male pilgrims represented 75 percent of the cases, while female patients accounted for 25 percent. The facility was staffed by a dedicated medical team of six doctors and three nurses, working in rotational shifts.
Health services ranged from vital signs monitoring and management of heat exhaustion, to chronic illness care and emergency triage. Notably, 20 patients were transferred to the Armed Forces Hospital in Mina for advanced treatment, while one critical case required urgent lifesaving intervention, underscoring the preparedness and responsiveness of the team.
Pilgrims sought care for a wide spectrum of conditions, including headaches, fatigue, skin infections, joint pain, conjunctivitis, gastrointestinal discomfort, heatstroke, and minor injuries.
Bupa Arabia CEO Tal Nazer said: “We are honored to bring Bupa Clinics to Hajj for the first time, offering advanced, people-centric care to the guests of Allah, both members and non-members regardless of their insurance status. This reflects our mission to expand access to quality healthcare and deliver services where they’re most needed, through an integrated model driven by innovation and compassion.”
Dr. Abdullah Khafagy, executive medical director at Bupa CareConnect, added: “Hajj is a spiritual journey that presents unique medical challenges, and the Bupa Clinics allowed us to respond proactively, providing early screenings, preventive care, and timely interventions in the heart of Mina. This initiative is a testament to our healthcare philosophy, proactive, accessible, and centered on human dignity.”
The Bupa Clinics initiative aligns with the Kingdom’s Vision 2030 goals to enhance the quality of life and boost the private sector’s role in public health.
