Bahraini Education Minister addresses UNESCO

Education Minister Dr. Majed bin Ali Al Nuaimi has delivered a statement at the 36th General Conference of the United Nation Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation (UNESCO), held here recently. In the statement, Dr. Al Nuaimi highlighted the effective role played by UNESCO in the fields of education, sustainable development, and issues of communication and bridging the digital gap between countries, as well as the preservation of cultural heritage and diversity, asserting that the kingdom has prioritised those issues in its national plans and is keen to avail of international expertise, including UNESCO's, to implement them. Speaking in the presence of over 200 official delegations, Dr. Al Nuaimi pointed out that Bahrain has succeeded in spreading e-learning through the pioneering King Hamad Schools of the Future Project and is currently turning some of its curricular into electronic ones, in cooperation with UNESCO. He also said that technical education in the kingdom has undergone a qualitative leap in collaboration with UNESCO experts, adding that during the last revision of primary and secondary curricula, the Education Ministry has consolidated the concepts of human rights practices and patriotism and the values of peaceful co-existence. In this regard, he explained that the Ministry aims to promote those values and concepts among the school community in order to protect schools from being exploited as platforms of political and sectarian polarization. He also stressed that the remedial steps currently taken by the Ministry aim to eradicate the impacts of the recent regretful incidents on schools, in accordance with international standards in this regard. The Education Minister also briefed the attendees on the on-going educational, scientific, cultural and heritage cooperation between the kingdom and UNESCO, citing the UNESCO-King Hamad Prize for the Use of Information and Communication Technologies in Education which has attracted numerous researchers and experts in e-learning. He also highlighted the kingdom's educational strides, which, he asserted, has established education as a basic right. The kingdom's delegation to the UNESCO's General Conference held a number of bilateral meetings with heads of delegations and taken part in the daily Arab coordination meetings.