Al-Babtain Foundation to launch Arab culture centre at old Dutch university

Bid to promote understanding of Arabic culture

KUWAIT CITY, Oct 2, (KUNA): Leiden University, the oldest in The Netherlands, is set to hold a ceremony marking the launch of an Arabic culture centre founded by the Kuwait-based Abdulaziz Saud Al-Babtain Cultural Foundation.

The Al-Babtain Leiden University Centre for Arabic Culture will open its doors on Oct 10.

It will offer lectures, workshops and symposia focused on the culture of this specific part of the world in its “cultural, knowledge and scholarly” boundaries, according to a statement.

The programme aims to promote the understanding of the Arabic culture and build bridges between Arab region and the rest of the world.

The foundation supports several initiatives in Europe to promote the study of the Arabic language and culture, and has jointly established chairs for Arabic culture with over 15 universities.

Department of Planning in Ministry of Education is expecting the number of Kuwaiti students to graduate from 12th grade from both scientific and literary electives in the 2018/2019 academic year to reach 18,168 students. This includes 6,882 male graduates and 10,286 female graduates who will be qualified to join the university in the 2019/2020 academic year, reports Al-Rai daily. Director of Public Authority for Housing Care Bader Al-Waqyan said 15 of the 53 schools will be handed over to the Ministry of Education, reports AlRai daily.

The new schools include six kindergartens, six primary, two intermediate and a secondary. All these schools are currently under construction in the suburbs of Sabah Al-Ahmad, Al-Wafra and west of Abdullah Al-Mubarak.

In his report forwarded to the Ministry of Education, Al-Waqyan indicated the percentage of completion in these schools has reached 100, while the time program for the rest of schools mostly in west of Abdullah Al-Mubarak area is being considered.

The Civil Service Commission (CSC) will nominate 10,000 citizens, who are registered with CSC for employment, during the 64th session which starts from Sunday, reports Al-Rai daily quoting an informed source.

Meanwhile, CSC affirmed the continuation of the Kuwaitization (replacement) policy for a period of five years as per the relevant decision.

In a video clip that went viral on Twitter, the undersecretary of CSC said, “We have 888 Kuwaiti employees and 82 non-Kuwaitis, which makes the total number of employees 970”, adding that the services of 20 employees were terminated last year.