National eLearning Center (NELC)

The National eLearning Center (NELC) is an electronic center concerned with enhancing trust in e-learning in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, raising its efficiency, and leading innovation in digital transformation in the education sector. It was established by a decision of the Council of Ministers in 2018.

The NELC has several objectives, primarily aimed at facilitating integration by enabling lifelong equal access to e-learning, identifying all forms of e-learning, ensuring high quality in e-learning, championing equitable access to e-learning, improving responsiveness to changes, offering directed e-learning opportunities increasingly tailored to individual learner needs, investing in new technologies to meet evolving requirements, and addressing intricate educational problems through e-learning.

The NELC provides a range of services that include licensing, which entails providing licenses to entities to enable them to engage in e-learning and e-training practices aimed at enhancing quality in alignment with the best international standards, all done efficiently and effectively.

The NELC also offers study and consulting services through conducting developmental and evaluative studies and providing consultations in the e-education and e-training sector for both government and private sectors involved in e-education or e-training, in order to create a comprehensive database of e-learning resources, assess beneficiary satisfaction, and evaluate the submitted studies and research.

Training and qualification are among the services provided by the NELC, which qualifies and trains all entities and individuals providing e-learning and e-training programs via several programs, such as e-education, qualification of entities, and professional certificates.

The NELC has worked on several initiatives, namely the National e-Learning Platform. This platform is dedicated to providing online academic and vocational education and training programs, in collaboration with both national and international education, training, and employment entities.

The Saudi National Open Educational Content Program is one of NELC's initiatives that aims to enable entities and individuals to access open educational content through organizing, publishing, authoring, and using open educational resources.

The National Indicator for e-Learning and e-Training is another NELC initiative. It is an annual indicator that measures the current state of e-learning in the Kingdom according to international standards by measuring the performance of educational institutions and their ranking both nationally and internationally.

In 2022, the board of directors of NELC approved the launch of the e-Learning and e-Training Innovation Award. The award is one of NeLC's initiatives that aims to increase the reliability of e-learning and e-training, celebrate national achievements and innovative projects in the sector, and contribute to the development of human capabilities by encouraging workers to provide the best solutions and practices in the e-learning and e-training sector.

The award is one of the pillars enabling the e-learning and e-training sector in the Kingdom and developing human capital. It works to drive innovation and create distinguished leaders in the sector while promoting integration between the ecosystem's entities and sectors. Additionally, it encourages them to develop, research, and innovate in the preparation of distinguished educational and training programs that maximize the impact of e-learning and e-training in the Kingdom and enhance its reliability.