RIYADH — The Saudi Education and Training Evaluation Commission (ETEC) announced the launch of standardized tests for graduates of university education institutions during the period from May 17 to 31 this year. The exams, which will be applied for the first time in the history of university education in the Kingdom, is one of the outputs of the commission’s Jahiziya program to raise the readiness of the university graduates to take up jobs in the labor market. The initiative aims to evaluate and support improvement of the performance of bachelor’s students as well as to help universities and government and private colleges know the quality of their outputs and opportunities for improvement, without affecting the success or failure of students. These standardized tests come in implementation of the decision of the Council of Universities Affairs, which includes popularizing the standardized test with the aim of evaluating the outputs of knowledge, skills and values of graduates in their respective specializations. This is through assessing the level of quality of standards by conducting tests on a sample number of university graduates every three years. The ETEC launched the program to raise the readiness of graduates of higher education for the labor market (Jahiziya) to set a specialized framework that represents the minimum level of knowledge, skills and values for each specialized field, through cooperation between scientific teams from universities and specialized teams from representatives of the relevant government and private sector agencies, and then conduct standardized tests for graduates in light of the specialized framework. The commission has followed a specific methodology for formulating specialized standards, represented in surveying excellent international experiences, identifying national needs in the labor market, and consulting with employers and academic experts. The document of specialized standards and learning outcomes contains minimum specialized knowledge units. The commission confirms that the document of specialized standards represents the minimum required learning outcomes in each discipline, allowing academic institutions sufficient space for creativity in their programs and study plans. The standardized tests for this year include 13 university majors such as finance, accounting, marketing, finance and investment, risk and insurance, banking and financial markets, computer engineering, computer science, software engineering, information systems, information technology, cybersecurity/ information security, and artificial intelligence.