Issue No. 595
Opinion
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18 - 24 July 2002 Issue No. 595 Opinion |
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| Published in Cairo by AL-AHRAM established in 1875 | Recommend this page | ||
Learning to think
I felt heartened by President Mubarak's most recent statements, in which he delineated the state's educational strategy in the period to come: indeed, they left me feeling optimistic. One point especially caught my attention: education should not depend on learning by rote. I was heartened because such a statement suggests that education occupies a prominent place on the government's agenda and that, in turn, reassures me about the future of the country.
Egypt's interests, you see, cannot be assessed by exclusive reference to political and economic indicators. Education is, if anything, even more significant, because it is education that shapes the future generation. It is education that will determine whether the next generation is to be condemned to live in the last century or whether it will embrace progress and throw up the leaders necessary to see the nation succeed in the 21st century. Education must be directed towards improving efficiency and consolidating the intellect, will and capability necessary to cope with the present time.
Mubarak's statements about education, made during his recent meeting with ministers, can be distilled into a series of specific directions given to the cabinet, directions that, in the next period, must be translated into clear policies aimed at realising the essential modernising of the Egyptian mind. This can only be achieved through modernising educational methods to concentrate on a single question: how can we make the student think? Older methods were not directed towards thinking but rather towards stuffing the head of the student with as much information as possible, whether or not he is going to use it later on in life. Only new methods, combined with moral edification regarding the will to carve out a niche, will enable the new generation to overcome the very serious difficulties it will inevitably encounter.
Based on an interview by Mohamed Salmawy
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