Arab Educational Information Network

In the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, as in other Arab countries, the demand for university education has increased over the past two decades, accompanied by grade inflation in secondary education; hence, there was a need to formulate admission criteria that ensure the selection of the best applicants for the various disciplines while safeguarding equity and equal opportunities. To achieve this general objective, The National Centre for Assessment in Higher Education was established as an autonomous national body to provide universities with standards and tests that can be used for admission. By employing such standards and tests, the Centre aims to avoid improvisation and arbitrariness in the development of admission tests and to standardize objectives, material, style and implementation. The Centre also aims to unify admission criteria across universities and promote the use of standard measurement methods that are capable of forecasting the level of student performance at university. Moreover, it aims to impact public education positively by promoting education that is oriented toward developing the desired capabilities and skills. Since the introduction of these standards and tests in 2003, significant integration has been achieved among the various admission criteria; namely, the General Certificate of Secondary Education, the aptitude test, and the achievement test. This integration bolstered trust in the admissions results, both in terms of their credibility in offering fair competition for students and in their predictive ability as a whole. This paper presents a short description of the National Centre for Assessment in Higher Education project in Saudi Arabia, which was established in 2002. It deals with the philosophy and need for such a centre, as well as earlier examples of such institutions in advanced countries. It also presents a summary of the tests and standards offered by the Centre, in terms of their objectives, nature, method of implementation, and beneficiaries. Finally, the paper focuses on the quantitative aspect, clarifying how the Centre’s tests and standards have reduced failure rates at universities and improved the quality of university education. (Published Astract)