Public school system not fertile ground for e-learning – experts
‘Need to train teachers, admins on implementation’
KUWAIT CITY, Oct 17: Educational sources revealed some of the failures that accompany distance education in Kuwait, stressing that public school system is not fertile ground for the application of e-learning, and that all companies and educational institutions over the last decade confirmed the magnitude of the project and the difficulty in its implementation – notwithstanding the current situation of public education, reports Al-Rai daily.
The source referred to an agreement between the Ministry of Education and the British Council on how to introduce technology into education and keep abreast of global developments in contemporary education.
He mentioned that the number of electronically developed schools that have external communication networks with some countries ranges from 70 to 80 and located within the schools affiliated with UNESCO in Kuwait, having links with some educational institutions in the United Kingdom as well.
According to the comparisons made between private foreign schools in Kuwait and public education schools in terms of applying technology in education, the difference is large and vast, so there is no comparison in both sectors, as some American schools in Kuwait prepare students to study in American universities and institutes, with direct contact to register all their graduates.
He indicated the Ministry of Education in the year 2010 spent about 160 million dinars for the application of e-learning over a period of 5 years by offering 10 tenders to equip the infrastructure, electronic content, educational portal and classroom with integrated technologies.
All foreign companies that visited Kuwait recently and looked at the conditions of the school environment in various school districts confirmed in their reports that the land is not completely fertile for the implementation of such a huge project, which needs an infrastructure suitable for training teachers, mentors and school administrations on the correct implementation mechanism for e-learning. At the end of his speech, the source emphasized that a special section for e-learning must be created in the new organizational structure of the Ministry, similar to the Gulf countries and other countries like Jordan, if this project is to succeed.