Who Needs the General Educational Test? How It Relates to the Subject Test and How Your License Level Is Set

Last verified: 18 October 2026. Conditions can change, so check the Teachers' Professional License page on the Education and Training Evaluation Commission (ETEC) website before you decide. This site is independent and is not affiliated with ETEC, Qiyas (the National Center for Assessment) or any government body.

The Teachers' Professional License is issued by the Education and Training Evaluation Commission (ETEC) and run by its National Center for Assessment (Qiyas), with the Ministry of Education as the beneficiary. This guide explains who sits the General Educational Test, how it relates to the subject-specific test, how your license level is set, and how to prepare.

Who takes this test?

According to ETEC's page, the test is for:

• Serving teachers in public and private schools.
• People who want to work in teaching.
• Students about to graduate and recent graduates, who may also register.

Can you sit it without an education degree?

You do not need an education degree to register for the test: ETEC's page addresses "those wishing to practise the teaching profession" in general, and its FAQ says recent graduates "qualified to work in teaching jobs in the public and private sectors" can register. Issuing the license after you pass, however, requires "the appropriate qualification according to the requirements of the relevant bodies" (Article 4 of the Professional License Regulations). In practice the employing body, which for public schools is the Ministry of Education, decides which degrees are accepted for each teaching job. If your degree is not in education, check that it is accepted before you pay the test fee.

General and subject-specific: two tests for one license

One test result is not enough for the license; you need results in both tests. The differences:

The General Educational Test is the same for everyone: a maths teacher and an Arabic teacher sit the same paper. The subject-specific test is the one that matches your subject.

How is your license level set?

The Professional License Regulations for Educational Jobs (Article 4) set the level by three things together: your score, your qualification and your years of experience. The score that counts is the lower of your two test scores:

Example: if you score 82 on the General Educational Test and 68 on the subject test, the score that counts is 68, which is in the Practitioner Teacher band, even though your general score reaches the Expert band. So do not neglect either test. A score alone is not enough for Advanced or Expert: each level also has qualification and years-of-experience conditions in the Regulations table, so check it before you set your target.

Issuing the license or upgrading it to a higher level costs SAR 100 (Article 9). The license is valid for five years, and you can apply to renew it in its final year.

How to prepare

• Start with the official sources: the applicant guide for the General Educational Test for the content, weights and worked examples, and the General Educational Standards for the Practitioner Teacher indicators the questions are built on.
• Spend your time by weight: Language and Quantitative Skills (17%), Knowing Learners (15%) and Planning and Delivering Instruction (15%) together make up nearly half the test.
• Practise the quantitative part without a calculator, since calculators are not allowed.
• Get used to scenario questions: many describe a classroom situation and ask for the most appropriate action. The best answer is usually the one that centres on the learner, relies on evidence and tackles the root of the problem.
• Answer every question: wrong answers cost nothing, so never leave one blank.
• Train for the clock: about 80 seconds per question, so sit full 88-question tests in two hours, ideally on paper.
• Do not forget the subject test: your level is set by the lower score, so plan for both tests together.

This site also has question banks for the subject tests, each with 10 free questions: English 2, Mathematics 2, Computer Science, Science 2, Arabic 2, Biology, Physics, Chemistry.

How this site helps

• A question bank split by the nine standards the test measures, so you can see where you are strong and where you need more review.
• An explanation for every question showing why the answer is right and the other options are wrong, with a pointer to the standard it tests.
• Mock exams of 88 questions in two hours, timed like the real test.

The questions on this site are practice questions, not ETEC's questions, and your scores here are for practice only: they are not an official result and do not count toward the license. This site is independent and is not affiliated with ETEC, Qiyas, the Ministry of Education or any government body; it does not issue licenses or register you for the test.