Public Involvement in Education

By Columnist Mariam Al-Khater

Public engagement is a backbone of Qatar's Education Reform Initiative and in her latest Article "Public Involvement in Education" Columnist Mariam Al Khater appeared to the Qatari society at large and the media to actively participate in the current debate about the Education Reform effort. Mariam wrote that the development of education should not create doubts as it had no connection to the September 11 tragedy, or with the American’s international call for education reform. the American’s call to develop education came after the launch of Qatar’s initiative and not before that, as it happened in other countries, it was unfortunate that the international political conditions did not support the reform initiative but in fact made it difficult for people to accept it.

Mariam demonstrated a number of milestones that Qatar has crossed to prove that Qatar had decided to develop its education way before the September 11 disaster. She said that: From 1995-1996, under His Highness the Emir’s directions, Qatar prepared a study about its educational systems where she was in fact, a member of one of the committees entrusted with the preparation of the studies. In 1997, His Highness the Emir stated in his speech at George Town University in Washington that the State of Qatar is approaching a development project which will be implemented gradually and not suddenly.

This proves that the development was not planned suddenly after the incident of September 11. In 1998, Qatar adopted an educational development system in some schools called the “Scientific Schools” as an experiment to assess the feasibility of whether the project would succeed. In conclusion, Mariam said that although Arab and foreign experts (including American) have been involved in the implementation of the initiative, the development system is 100 per cent a Qatari project.

In the second part, Mariam said the Reform Initiative, the Media, and the people are to be blamed for the flaws in the initiative. She said the Supreme Education Council (SEC) has been short in its efforts. Mariam noted that strong Curriculum Standards were designed in the four main subjects and the SEC made the Islamic Religion a main subject but did not monitor the Operators’ methods for applying the curriculum - some schools have changed them.

Mariam said the authorities in these schools should be subject to supervision, directions, and principles and the Operators should be instructed to maintain these principles. She also said that follow up on school performance and control should not be judged only by the Evaluation Institute’s assessment results.

Mariam also said that people should not accept the SEC Education Institute’s selection of School Operators in terms of offering school operations to those who meet the requirements.

Mariam recommends that an office should be established under the direct authority of the Chairperson of the Supreme Education Council to be called “Inspection Office” or the “Technical Office” to receive reports presented by the SEC Education and Evaluation Institutes.

She said that this office should be responsible for comparing the SEC reports with the actual facts of the education in schools, before submitting these reports to the Chairperson. She said this should be done at the beginning of any project that involves a new experiment where partialities are expected.

Mariam said that people were not cooperating towards the development of education. She noted that complaints and comments about the education reform initiative were limited to homes and gatherings. This is what she meant when she said that “people were lazy” in her previous column. She noted that there is no point of the education development revolution if people did not discuss it on the radio programs or the news papers.

Mariam accused the press of being lazy in disseminating education reform initiative issues through interviews, surveys, and discussions to realize that aspect of parents’ participation in the education of their children. Mariam requested the Supreme Education Council to create dialogue with the people, on the air to discuss the reasons for its shortcomings which are common in any new project.

She noted that the SEC should not adopt the policy of silence to people’s inquiries because the philosophy which the SEC is implementing is a great one in terms of changing children’s traditional thinking to innovative critical thinking. She said the country has offered its people this free compulsory education to make all people equal in terms of obtaining the international curriculum standards also adopted in private international schools.