RIYADH, 9 March 2007 — A training program will be launched in the Kingdom to prepare teachers for a course in media education that will eventually form part of the curriculum in Saudi schools.
This was one of the major recommendations of the First International Conference on Media Education that concluded here on Wednesday night. Khaled A. Mugrin Al-Saud, Deputy Minister of Education, Mohammed Al-Heezan of Imam Muhammed ibn Saud Islamic University, and Samy A. Tayie, president, International Media Education Organization, Madrid, were present at the concluding session.
The four-day conference, which brought together academic and media specialists from the Kingdom and the Gulf, recommended various measures to put schoolchildren through their paces in media education, so that they learn to distinguish between what is harmful in the cultural and moral context and what is not.
Coordinators concluded that there should be coordination among educational authorities from different provinces, so that they could share their experience and map out a comprehensive strategy for promoting media education among students. Among other things, it should teach them to be discriminating in the choice of TV programs or Internet content so that it does not undermine their morals or raise security concerns.
The conference recommended that efforts should be mounted for upgrading the skills of teachers to help them shoulder their new responsibility. To this end, private and public-sector organizations as well as those active in the educational field should pool their resources for setting up training programs in coordination with international experts.
Academics and media specialists should set up a joint committee under the umbrella of the Ministry of Education to promote media education programs designed to address the challenges arising from the digital world.
It was also resolved that the next international conference on media education will be held in the UAE followed by another one in Cairo in 2009. These events will become an annual feature henceforth.
A question-answer session that followed the announcement of the recommendations projected the concerns of the participants, including the women. Some called for the launch of a TV channel for teachers as part of a joint venture between the ministries of education, culture and information. Others suggested that the introduction of media education as a subject could pave the way for a higher course at the university level in future.
Speaking on the media education programs in other countries, Tayie later told Arab News that Canada has an advanced program in media education.
“Unfortunately, we came to learn about them in the beginning of the 21st century,” he said. “We established our media education association about three years ago.”
The whole thrust of the media education program was how to stimulate critical thinking among school children. The program consists of modules designed to take children one step at a time.
