‘Do more to boost education’
formal education began in kuwait in 1912 with the opening of the mubarakiya school. after almost a hundred years, it became clear to officials of the ministry of education that its bureaucracy and its preoccupation with organizational, political and financial matters prevented it from developing education given the interference from all quarters and preventing it from setting modern approaches and moving away from fanaticism.
in 2006, an official of the ministry of education considered establishing a center to develop education within an integrated plan to initiate a quantitative and measurable shift by overseeing the development of curricula and teaching methods as far as possible, away from partisanship, tribalism, and sectarianism.
however, politics interfered and refused to let the center operate independently and a dispute broke out between the center and the ministry and this prompted experienced personnel to ‘abandon’ the center although sad and angry especially after the ministry canceled the agreement with the world bank which stopped the developmental program after spending a lot of time, effort and money.
it is currently regrettable to note that the board of trustees of the center is not very different from the boards of trustees in many agencies because most members have the tendency for personal gains and have no objection to the ministry interfering in their work and the way it is managed.
thus we see that the center, like most governmental agencies concerned with education, suffers from issues of government supervision and control, and from restricting its budget, which remains in the hands of the minister of education, who can do much to raise the level of the educational process.
in a previous statement to the local newspapers made by professor reda al-khayat, one of the founders of the center and its first director, who had long experience in the educational process said the center was established to address the problems of education in kuwait, some of which was implemented but it soon became clear there were obstacles and the most important of them was the budget and another related to the method of evaluation or mechanism that revealed a conflict of interest between the center and the minister’s office in particular.
al-khayat added the budget of the center is still attached to the ministry of education, which impedes its work, pointing out that it needs full independence in order to be able to play the role assigned to it, as is the case of any evaluation or supervision body.
the minister cannot be supervising the work of the center which has the task of assessing the work of the ministry. consequently, the center failed to fulfill its role since its establishment and it recently became stagnant even vulnerable to the danger of its total abolition due to the ministry’s insistence of duplication of its work with the work of the educational curricula and research department or sector in the ministry of education.
if this is the case for the most important educational center in the country, then what is the case for the transportation department in the ministry itself? we have confidence in the minister of education, and we hope that he works for the independence of the center, to fortify it, to appoint an original director for it, and to release his hand in reforming education. we are backward and we must say enough is enough.
