‘E-learning project completed in ’18, but didn’t see the light’
No financial suspicions were detected: Al-Rashid
KUWAIT CITY, May 2: Former Head of E-learning Team at Ministry of Education, Assistant Professor at the College of Engineering in Kuwait University, Dr Khaled Al-Rashid, revealed that implementation of e-learning started in the ministry during academic year 2009/2010, and despite the challenges faced, they were not related to technical affairs, reports Al-Rai daily.
“We have prepared the infrastructure, electronic content, educational portal and devices, and only short of setting a start date”, added Al-Rashid, indicating the former minister of education Dr Hamed Al-Azmi has rejected the approach to renewing contracts for the tablet and the minister’s orientation was to stop the work in e-education and everything related to the file.
He stated that external pressure mounted by some lawmakers was great, but some former ministers stopped it, because they believed in the importance of e-learning.
Devices
He indicated some of the justifications for stopping the “tablet” included claims that students were not using them, which is not true, as devices were distributed to all high school students. He pointed to an interactive curricula wherein all elements of the system were prepared to launch in 2018. Unfortunately, the project did not see the light, he said.
He added the rejection of this educational model, which has been applied in all countries of the world and some Gulf countries such as the United Arab Emirates and Qatar, makes the private lessons trade popular with some teachers.
He said the technical foundations of e-learning were present in 2018 from devices, portal, technical support engineers and teachers trained in all secondary schools.
He said the country lacked guidance in activating the e-learning project and applying it through a formal decision, indicating e-learning system for the secondary stage approved by the former minister Nouriya Al-Subaih in 2009, was completed in 2018, and it lacked the highest directives to activate and set its launch date.
He disclosed that some letters were submitted to the then minister of education and higher education Dr Hamed Al-Azmi regarding the readiness to activate e-learning, but it turned out to be the opposite, indicating teachers cannot compel students to enter the educational portal without an official ministerial decision.
Support
He pointed out that the teacher can only instruct a student based on directives from the chief instructor regarding the mechanism of teaching in a conference as per directives of the assistant undersecretary for public education, while the system was to be accomplished by the ministry’s undersecretary and the minister. He noted the system was ready with the availability of technical support and approval of contracts, but no observations were made by the State Audit Bureau other than “not to be used”.
He affirmed that no financial suspicions were detected in the project, but the accounting office asked why money was wasted on an untapped project, which is a natural note. He stressed that “the tablet project was adopted during his tenure as an assistant undersecretary for public education and things were moving towards this direction but the undersecretaries were rotated, even though I was one of the most enthusiastic about this project and constantly confronted any attempt to thwart it.”
Dr Khaled Al-Rashid
He said those who rejected this approach focused on what should be done in the event that a student refuses to return the device, noting the basic content of e-learning was lost through this thought. “I forwarded
dozens of letters when I was an undersecretary of the facilities to activate the educational portal and activate the curricula but it did not receive any response.”
“Without any logical reason, the
project was canceled in Kuwait, while it was launched in Qatar, the UAE and most countries of the world we visited, including Singapore, Britain, America and Switzerland,” Al-Rashid concluded.