DAMMAM: A forum on secondary education ended in Alkhobar yesterday made several recommendations to improve the standard of education, including the setting up of an independent commission for evaluating the teaching system.
The General Education Department in the Eastern Province organized the three-day forum to cope with the latest developments in the field.
“The forum stressed the significance of making education useful in developing life skills, enabling students to have better interactions with social institutions and inculcating in them a sense of patriotism,” said Abdulrahman Al-Mudairis, director general of general education in the Eastern Province.
The forum also recommended a review of curriculum, comparison of yearly and semester systems and the credit-hour system besides simplifying the process of switching from one system to another, he said.
The forum, which was attended by Education Minister Abdullah Al-Obaid and other top officials, recommended studying the experiments and experiences in other countries, in the region and elsewhere, on various new methods and reforms in secondary education.
The recommendations also included the need to give greater powers to secondary school principals so that they can discharge duties more effectively.
The participants disapproved of high dependence on readymade teaching materials and called for better supervision of classrooms with the help of modern teaching techniques.
They stressed the importance of teaching students in a manner that develops in them skills for application of the theories they learn. The forum pointed out that the quality of education was far more important than the quantity of topics learned.
Other recommendations included advanced training facilities for teachers, structural changes in the school administrative system to suit the needs of the modern education, and allocation of special funds for school activities.
