Manama: A private university in Bahrain has rejected criticism that it was disregarding Arabic, the country's official language, after it conducted its first batch graduation ceremony in English.
"The graduates this year are from 13 nationalities and most of them do not understand Arabic," Riyadh Dhaif, Deputy Registrar at the Royal College of Surgeons in Ireland-Medical University of Bahrain (RCSI-MUB), said.
"The university has students from 36 countries and around 40 per cent of them do not speak Arabic," he said.
The university on Wednesday came under heavy criticism from a local columnist for holding its graduation ceremony this week in English.
"We may accept that communication within the university is in English. However, we find it shocking that Arabic is totally ignored at the ceremony even though most, if not all the graduates were Bahrainis," Jamal Zouaid wrote in Akhbar Al Khaleej, a pan- Arab newspaper.
"We condemn this attitude and blame the organisers for not respecting our language. There is no excuse for resorting to another language."
However, Dhaif said that the columnist's conclusion and statement were not based on facts.
"It is obvious that the columnist did not know that three of the speakers were from Ireland and did not speak Arabic," Dhaif said. "In fact, most of the academic and administrative staff do not understand the language."
The first batch of graduates included 72 medical professionals and the ceremony was attended by officials from RCSI (Dublin), the Royal College of Physicians of Ireland and the National University of Ireland.
Although Arabic is the official language in Bahrain, English is widely used in education institutions and public and private establishments.
The choice of languages in public gatherings has never been an issue in Bahrain.
