Work on the forum on Arab education policies began today in Hammamet and will continue until July 21, with the participation of education ministers from several Arab countries and representatives of civil society. Education Minister Mohamed Ali Boughdiri said that the issue of financing the education sector in the Arab world was extremely important given the efforts being made to achieve development. In this connection, he stressed the importance of coordination between Arab countries and with representatives of civil society to implement comprehensive reforms. This forum represents, he said, an opportunity to bring together the points of view of the various stakeholders in the Arab world, at the level of the ministers of education, to unify the methodologies of education in the future and thus meet the challenges that lie ahead. Boughdiri believes that to increase their financial resources, Arab countries should first and foremost make use of their resources and mobilise substantial budgets for the education and teaching sector. Tunisia is moving towards the goal of attractive schools by taking care of the basic infrastructure, making high-speed internet widely available, implementing the programme to digitise education while revising the assessment system, which has been described as mediocre, and attaching greater importance to school transport and school meals to combat the drop-out rate, estimated at over 100,000 pupils a year, Boughdiri stressed in particular. Kamel Missaoui, President of the Tunisian Education Coalition, stressed the need to draw up recommendations at the end of the forum, to transform them into draft legislation and measures to facilitate the development of funding for the education sector. For his part, President of the Arab Institute for Human Rights, Abdelbasset Ben Hassen, highlighted the need for Arab countries to put in place new education policies based on investment in education and teaching. The aim, he noted, was to find solutions to several issues, including employability and climate change, and to achieve the objective of strengthening public education for the benefit of all parties.
Source: EN – Agence Tunis Afrique Presse