Standard Arabic to be adopted in Saudi schools

Manama: Saudi Arabia has instructed teachers who communicate with students in Arabic to adopt Standard Arabic as the exclusive means of instruction and communication at kindergartens, schools, and educational institutions.

All the teachers have been told not to use dialects and non-Standard Arabic words or expressions and to make sure their students adopt only Standard Arabic, Prince Khalid Al Faisal, the education minister, said.

“The decision by the education ministry aims to enhance the use of Standard Arabic, he said in the Tunisian capital Tunis where he took part in a pan-Arab education conference.

Standard Arabic is the formal language used by all Arab states, mainly in writing and in giving speeches.

However, each Arab country has its own dialect and students exposed mainly to dialectic Arabic at home, in public places and in some classrooms, neglect the more rigid Standard Arabic in their textbooks, resulting in lower learning standards.

Most Arabic dialects have their own grammatical structures that are at times different from Standard Arabic.

Letters in several cases are pronounced differently and some of the dialectic Arabic words do not exist in Standard Arabic.

Officials keen on preserving Standard Arabic and on ameliorating the status of communication and writing in Arabic have been calling for making it “compulsory for schoolchildren and teachers inside and outside the classroom.”

They said “more attention should be given to kindergartens and elementary schools where children start learning the basics of their mother tongue.”

Prince Khalid said Arabs needed to ameliorate education standards to overcome serious deficits within the community.

“We have designed a plan to improve public education based on an ambitious programmes consisting of several initiatives,” he said, local news site Sabq reported on Wednesday.

Initiatives include sending 25,000 Saudi teachers to advanced countries to acquire new experiences, hone their aptitudes and acquire new skills, he said.

Around 1,500 kindergartens will be built to accommodate more children at an earlier age and all schools will be linked through an electronic network, he said.

Schools will be allocated extra money to help them fund cultural and athletic activities while 15 centres for students with special needs will be set up. Gifted students will also be encouraged to join special clubs, the minister added.