Revolution long overdue

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The education in Kuwait needs complete overhaul through a qualitative revolution in the curricula.

It is clear that all of our misfortunes, our backwardness, the deviation of our youth from the goal can all be attributed to strange religious interpretations.

Our youth are dying in unwanted combat on battlefields which are not alien to them. Unemployment has taken the toll on them, their morale is low and the same can be said of education which has reached very low ebb.

They have lost the meaning for values and politeness as a result of deterioration in the educational system, form and substance, and vice versa, and examples are many which cannot be counted.

A thinker believes that the deterioration of morale, values and education in Egypt, especially after the coup of 1952, has negatively affected the rest of the Arab world because of the low level of Egyptian teachers and the blessed religious awakening which destroyed the semi-good remaining education.

Our colleague Sami al-Beheiry says when Taha Hussein — one of the most influential 20th-century Egyptian writers and intellectuals, and a figurehead for the Egyptian Renaissance and the modernist movement in the Middle East and North Africa — asked the then Egyptian Education Minister: “When education will improve?” he said, the answer of the minister was “We will see”.

Taha Hussein was, of course, died without seeing any improvement in his vision or education, and was greatly depressed.

Some believe that the basic problem of education in Egypt and the Arab world lies in the alarming deterioration in public education and the private education seems to have lost its patience and ability to resist underdevelopment.

Therefore, it is necessary to change our outlook of the school as a factory for manufacturing certificates to create a human of high morale, principles and ability to possess different skills.

As knowledge has now been transformed onto the Smartphone from thousands of books this has brought on par the elderly and the young as old as an 80-year-old and a 15-year-old because they have the same ability to understand the world and surf through the search tools like Google what they want without the need to learn by heart or memorize as was the case in olden times. However, we need more.

As stated in the article of al-Bayeri we need to learn the skills how to use knowledge, to be able to be on par with the developed world to increase our knowledge of science and learn handicrafts according to the needs of the community such as carpentry, plumbing, electricity, mechanics and others.

We also need to know healthy nutrition systems to produce healthy generations, to know the arts and to taste music, painting, sculpture, poetry and acting, how to raise children to be good human beings, denounce hatred and love others whatever their religion, color, gender and social position.

The current methods of education are void of any knowledge. They don’t teach to produce grain or olives and teaches about Tunisia or the color of its flag.

This revolution is not difficult and the countries which have introduced it have the experience. They have become the most advanced countries in the world, and can benefit others with their experiences.

In Finland, for example, many schools have abolished traditional subjects and are more concerned about teaching skills and using knowledge and allowing boys and girls to use the Smartphone to gain knowledge within the classroom.

These schools have also done away with homework and some primary schools have begun holding seminars to discuss global problems such as migration, global warming, the environment and other vital issues. Will we hear about such revolution?

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This news has been read 8711 times!