Saudis stellen 9 Milliarden Riyal für Bildung bereit

Insgesamt 9 Milliarden Saudi Riyal (rund 2 Milliarden EURO) stehen für die Entwicklung und Qualitätsverbesserung des saudischen Bildungssystems zur Verfügung, berichteten saudische Bildungsexperten in der Presse.



Saudis allocate 9b riyals for education
02/15/2007 | By Mariam Al Hakeem, Correspondent

Riyadh: Saudi Arabia is moving ahead in developing its education curriculum, said Saudi educational experts in press statements yesterday.

A total of 9 billion Saudi riyals (almost equivalent to dirhams) were allocated for developing and upgrading the Saudi education system, the statements added.

"The King Abdullah Bin Abdul Aziz scheme for developing education will contribute to turning about 5 million male and female students from the traditional method of text books and lesson memorisation, which is currently adopted in schools, to the application of scientific methods that help students upgrade their mental and thinking skills," the experts said during a press conference in Riyadh.

The Saudi education system came under fire after the September 11 attacks with reports in the West claiming that the Saudi curriculum promotes hatred and nourishes terrorism. Saudi officials have reiterated that textbooks in the Kingdom are updated periodically to reflect the developments in different subjects.

Gulf News has learned that the new scheme will include the introduction of e-syllabus and the training of some 400,000 male and female teachers to enable them to cope with the new development in trends. Latest state of the art technologies will be applied during the implementation of this project.

Education experts expect the implementation of this scheme to develop school environments and to turn them towards information and e-learning.

They added that schoolrooms will be linked through many different types of networks to enhance learning via modern technologies. "The scheme will also include non-syllabus activities according to the age group of students. These activities will cover religion, sports, art and social fields," they said.

The project will cover all the regions and is expected to further develop the education process in Saudi Arabia. Meanwhile, in December 2006 the performance of Saudi universities also came under attack by a number of columnists in the local press following the release of a global rating of world universities. The ranking has put Saudi universities at the bottom of the list, a matter that sparked debate among Saudi academics who called for urgent reforms in the education system.

Participants of a symposium held to discuss the situation of universities in Saudi Arabia shortly after the release of the ranking report, lamented the methods of teaching at these universities, describing them as "lacking the concept of dialogue promotion".