EF partners with Saudi Arabia's T4EDU as Ministry of Education Designates English Skills as Key Priority for the Kingdom's Future

London (ots/PRNewswire) -

EF Education First, the world leader in language training for
business, government and the education sector, announced today the
signing of a partnership with Saudi Arabia's Tatweer Company for
Educational Services Company (T4EDU), a government-owned company
dedicated to education development which was initiated by His Majesty
King Abdullah Bin Abdul-Aziz development project.

The partnership which focuses on training English teachers across
the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia follows the announcement by the Ministry
of Education (MoE) of its newly-established K-12 education
development strategy. This identifies English language skills as a
key competence and priority for the country's economic future and
prosperity in the global market place. The strategy includes
implementing English at a very early stage (4th grade) of the K-12
program to enable children and young adults to learn and grow into
responsible and productive citizens.

"The Ministry is making major investments in language training",
said Dr. Sami Alshwairkh, Director of ELT Development Initiative at
T4EDU, because it recognizes that "English skills are a crucial
component of the foundation on which companies and careers are built.
It is more essential than ever before for effective collaboration
across borders and gives accessto valuable resources, knowledge and
opportunities globally."

The Kingdom's Education system currently employs over 27,000
English teachers in its middle and high school levels, and is set to
expand further for the elementary levels in the coming year.

Having enrolled 2,000 English language teachers to EF's online
school as a first step in the three year contract, Dr. Alshwairkh
praised the partnership: "We were looking for a strong English
training partner, with a track record of successful implementation of
large-scale online professional development programs. EF has the
capacity and a high quality methodology within each element of
speaking, listening, reading and writing. As an already established
English training partner with several governmental partnerships, we
are confident that EF can deliver."

The partnership has drawn on EF's own in-house team of over 300
developers, design, artificial intelligence, content and linguistic
specialists. This has resulted in over 2,000 hours of customized
learning content that aligns closely with Saudi culture and values
while maintaining the same quality and effectiveness of EF's
award-winning teaching methodology.

Jesper Knutell, Vice President, EF Corporate Language Learning
Solutions, commented: "We are delighted to have been chosen as an
exclusive language partner of the K-12 education strategy". Referring
to EF's capacity, Mr Knutell continues: "We are unique in that we can
very easily scale our resources to address the entire population of
teachers identified by both T4EDU and the Ministry of Education."

EF already enjoys several partnerships with various government
entities to help thousands of teachers and students in language
training, including with the Republic of Tatarstan (Russia) and, in
Saudi Arabia, with the Saudi Electronic University.

EF's online school is used by millions of students and thousands
of companies around the world to improve their English skills faster
than traditional classroom methods. The cloud-based school offers
courses from beginner to advanced level and uses cutting edge
technology including virtual classrooms and advanced speech
recognition to bring students and teachers together.

The strategic partnership with T4EDU is an important step for EF
in its future expansion in the region.

-ends-

For further information please contact:

Susan Nilsson,

Director of Communications,

susan.nilsson@ef.com, Tel: +44-74-3269-2538

About EF Corporate Language Learning Solutions

For more information please visit: http://www.ef.com/corporate
[http://www.ef.com/loc ].

About Tatweer Company for Educational Services Ltd

For more information please visit:
http://www.tatweer.edu.sa/t4edu/pdf/T4EDU-English.pdf

ots Originaltext: EF Corporate Language Learning Solutions
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