Ma’arif for Education and Training sets strong benchmark in successful delivery of e-learning in the Kingdom

Ma’arif for Education and Training (Ma’arif), one of the largest private school owners and operators in Saudi Arabia, has raised the bar on e-learning delivery and set new benchmarks in the Kingdom within the very first week of the new academic year. 

Highlighting the competency of the leading education group in providing tech-driven quality education and its confidence in addressing the current challenges, Ma’arif completed more than 23,000 lectures of e-learning sessions in the first week alone. The successful delivery of e-learning, appreciated by parents and students alike, adds to the Group’s focus on providing quality education through remote sessions in the coming days and ensuring that students gain utmost advantage. 

Setting an impressive track-record, more than 98 per cent student attendance was secured by Ma’arif schools in the first week. Lectures were delivered online to students, highlighting the strong digital and technical infrastructure of the Group. Ensuring seamless education delivery, 9,400 technical support cases were addressed efficiently by the team. They promptly responded to queries and concerns raised by students and parents, showing the proven ability of the school to handle e-learning programmes smoothly. The concerted efforts also led to a 93 per cent parent satisfaction rate, underlining the excellence of Ma’arif in providing remote learning sessions. 

The successful delivery of online learning further adds to the commitment of the Group to supporting parents and students. Recently, Ma’arif had announced tuition waivers from 10 to 100 per cent for students across its network, covering the Manarat Schools, Al Faisalia Islamic Schools, Green Hills International Schools and Nour Al Islam Schools. 

While kindergarten students can avail of 100 per cent tuition fee waiver, students in Grade 1 get 50 per cent fee discount. Grade 2 and 3 students get 25 per cent discount while those in Grade 4 to 6 benefit from 15 per cent fee reduction. There is blanket 10 per cent fee discount for all students from Grade 7 and above. 

Dr. Mohammad Al-Arfaj, CEO of Ma’arif for Education and Training, said: “We are proud and honoured by the success we have achieved in ensuring the smooth digital offering of education for our students. This is the result of continued efforts over the past months, as we invested significantly in our IT infrastructure, and prepared our teachers – as well as students and parents – for the new academic year. We see challenges as opportunities and acted fast to ensure quality education for our students, our future generation.”

He added: “We have planned our schedules and timetables to resemble a normal school day as much as possible and developed a dynamic assessment process that allows us to measure engagement and educational outcome, not simply attendance. From day one, our students have started receiving the same academic and education provision they would have received in a typical schooling day through our programme that blends online and offline lessons. Moreover, we used the week prior to day one for induction and ran multiple test sessions to ensure our student and parents are ready.”

Ma’arif has introduced several remote educational services including technical support channels (MLG [Ma’arif Learning Gateway] tickets, E-Mail, WhatsApp groups, and phone call) which are there to support students during the e-learning sessions. The school’s online platform MLG has also been integrated with Office 365 including Microsoft Teams to secure live streaming sessions. 

Ma’arif International Schools have earned an excellent reputation in Saudi Arabia, over the years, for their outstanding performance in Cambridge International Examinations. Results for May/June 2020 Exam Series in IGCSE, AS and A Level are outstanding, and have exceeded the UK average. 

The percentage of A*, A and B marks once again proves the quality of education provision offered at Ma’arif schools. The continued upward trend in attainment for the last three years’ results (May/June 2018 to May/June 2020) is a clear indication to the commitment and motivation of the students, parents and teachers. Such results have enabled Ma’arif for continuous overall development and ensured all the students are well supported in order to achieve their full potential.