H.E. Dr. Mohamed Ould Amar, Director-General of ALECSO, opened, on November 22, 2021, at ALECSO headquarters, the (hybrid) regional forum on the promotion of common Arab values and their integration into educational curricula in the Arab world.
In his opening remarks, the Director-General indicated that Arab States are making great efforts to give “Education on Values” its rightful place in school curricula as a key pillar of proper social upbringing, and to transform this education into permanent qualities, useful practices and practical perceptions, especially in view of the major challenges and issues facing educators in our Arab world.
The Director-General underlined the necessity of exploring the causes underlying the gap between the contents of curricula in terms of “Education on Values” and concrete realities in Arab societies. This will help to identify and address deficiencies, as well as to develop a flexible educational discourse that contributes to promoting the culture of commitment, citizenship and coexistence, immunizing young people against radical thinking, and curbing the spread of violence.
This Forum comes as part of implementing one of the recommendations adopted by the 11th Conference of Arab Education Ministers, held on November 6, 2019 in Manama, Bahrain. It was attended by representatives of the General Secretariat of the League of Arab States, ICESCO, the Arab Bureau of Education for the Gulf States, and the UNESCO Regional Center for Quality and Excellence in Education, along with relevant Arab experts and officials.
The Forum came out with the following recommendations:
- Adopting an Arab project for “Education on Values”;
- Developing a framework of reference for the terms and concepts related to “Education on Values”;
- Conducting an Arab field study on values.
- Building a matrix of Arab values aligned with universal values.
