Teacher Professional Development Guide via the Fares System: Steps and Points

The Saudi Ministry of Education has announced the activation of the second edition of the "Teachers' Professional Development Service" user guide via the Fares electronic system, covering the academic year 1447 AH (2026 CE). This important step aims to organize and streamline the procedures for registering professional development activities for educators, ensuring the accurate electronic calculation of their points. This contributes to standardizing work processes and guaranteeing the validity of outputs according to the permissions granted to each user.

The context of digital transformation and the importance of professional development

The launch of this guide comes within the framework of the Ministry of Education's strategy to fully automate administrative and educational services, in line with the Kingdom's Vision 2030 objectives for developing the education sector. The "Faris" system is the backbone of the Ministry's human resources, linking job data to teachers' career paths. This service is of paramount importance because professional development points are directly linked to promotion requirements in the new educational job classification system, which stipulates a minimum number of professional development points to move from one rank to another (Practitioner, Advanced, Expert). This makes the accuracy of monitoring crucial for the future careers of male and female teachers.

Guide details and usage instructions

The guide serves as a comprehensive reference document outlining the procedural steps within the system, including a detailed explanation of how to access the various screens based on job roles. The Ministry emphasized that entering activities is the sole responsibility of the educational staff member and cannot be delegated to any other party. It stressed the importance of ensuring that the entered data matches the official activity documentation. The service includes several features, most notably activity reports and cumulative and annual point reports, all accessible through the self-service portal in the Fares system.

Activity monitoring and points calculation mechanism

The guide clarified the precise criteria for calculating activity durations, which were categorized as follows:

• By the hour: For in-person training, online training, and workshops.
• By the days: for educational conferences and meetings.
• Without a time limit (knowledge production): This includes action research, scientific papers, specialized publications, training packages, and practical lessons.

The guide also highlighted a crucial point regarding workflow, as the system does not allow the addition of new activities until the previous activities have been processed by the direct supervisor (either by approval or rejection), which requires teachers to upload activities in batches to ensure speed of completion.

Reports and outputs

At the end of the process, the system allows for the generation of detailed reports in electronic formats (PDF and Excel) that illustrate the teacher's professional development history and total points awarded. The Ministry affirms that these procedures aim to enhance transparency and support teachers in easily documenting their professional achievements, which will positively impact the quality of educational performance in the field.