"Identity is never fragmented, divided into halves or thirds, or separated from the nature of the land and history, but rather helps to enrich the cultural gain of the nation and the people." It was never, in any way, possible for the Ministry of Education, led by Minister Dr. Hamad bin Muhammad Al Al-Sheikh, to lead the process of development and modernization without the component of strengthening national identity and personality including a wide amount of consolidation processes, and affirmation of the Saudi identity of male and female students. Who are the mainstay of the homeland and its prosperous future.
With more determination, blessed efforts and endeavors continued in order to strengthen the national identity, so the Ministry presented, in this context, and with great interest, examples of this strengthening, in a way that serves the strategic goals of the Kingdom's Vision 2030.
In the second episode of “Okaz” monitoring the ministry’s efforts for the comprehensive development process, the ministry’s report revealed its achievements that the development included every small and large in the various curricula, starting with enriching the texts with excerpts on wise leadership; Represented by the Custodian of the Two Holy Mosques King Salman bin Abdulaziz, and Crown Prince Muhammad bin Salman, and adding a word for the Custodian of the Two Holy Mosques to be among the world-famous words, and adding a new text about Crown Prince Muhammad bin Salman; To introduce students to his personality and efforts, the text was supported by various activities.
Women's gains in the good era
Because the Saudi movement and the Saudi gains that women achieved during the reign of the Custodian of the Two Holy Mosques King Salman bin Abdulaziz are great and huge, it was necessary to mention the role model, so a text was added on Princess Noura bint Abdul Rahman, and a text on Princess Reema bint Bandar bin Sultan; What supports the directions of the wise leadership in empowering Saudi women, while taking care of the concepts of loyalty to the homeland and the obligation of its group, and deleting the concepts of guardianship of the nation, as concepts that affect loyalty to the homeland, by reinforcing specific concepts, and emphasizing the obligation to obey the ruler and the prohibition of revolting against him and amending the wording accordingly. By adding the topic of the obligation of the group and the slander of the sect, dedicating a unit about the legal allegiance, clarifying its principles and rulings, and that it is only for the guardian of the two holy mosques, correcting the concept of Muslims’ rulers to the guardian, completely rearranging the topic and linking it to the defense of the homeland, and that with the permission of the guardian The Custodian of the Two Holy Mosques, and linked the visual image to scenes from the Saudi army championships with the Crown Prince.
Inspirational national models for students
The national models are among the inspiring personalities for male and female students at all levels of study. The national personalities and their contributions were introduced; Including Minister Dr. Ghazi Al-Qusaibi, and Minister of State for Foreign Affairs Adel Al-Jubeir, in addition to adding examples from history to introduce some symbols and heroes in the battles of the first Saudi state against the Ottoman state, such as Imam Abdullah bin Saud, in addition to adding a text on Saudi Vision 2030; Which is an ambitious national plan that expresses the country's goals and hopes for the year 2030, and is based on the unique strengths and capabilities of our country; To support citizens in achieving their aspirations and hopes, and it depends on three axes:
A vibrant society, a thriving economy, and an ambitious homeland, to enhance the national aspects of students and strengthen their belonging to the leadership of the country, in addition to adding two sayings from Prince Muhammad bin Salman, when he said, “I am pleased to present to you the vision of the present for the future, which we want to start working on today for tomorrow, So that it expresses all of our aspirations and reflects the capabilities of our country.”
Developing loyalty to the homeland and its leadership
Connecting students with the achievements of the vision, which contributed to reducing the unemployment rate and generating many job opportunities, providing innovative services to the pilgrims, highlighting the pivotal international role of the Kingdom and its relief efforts in the world, and cooperating with the King Abdulaziz House in developing social studies curricula; In an effort to enhance national identity and develop loyalty to the homeland and its leadership.
And because the modification and development is not limited to content only, but rather goes beyond it to form and image as well, so that it is an integrated and equal development from all angles. To enhance the national character in the curricula, in addition to changing the images that did not include the national dress with images that enhance the Saudi personality in the curricula, with pictures of young Saudis practicing their work or hobbies, along with pictures of young Saudis working as doctors instead of foreign youth, and adding the names of Saudi cities instead of foreign cities And adding the Saudi flag, and changing the dollar currency to Saudi riyals.
Within the framework of the development, a guide was presented for reviewing textbooks as one of the main tools used to control, review, revise and improve the quality of books. It was built according to main components, centered on:
1- Loyalty to the leadership, strengthening national belonging, and immunization from takfiri and extremist ideas.
2 – Scientific, educational and technical aspects.
3 – Opportunities to invest and develop content
4- Criteria for nomination of scientific team members.
Development programs to promote national values
The cooperation of the Ministry of Education with the King Abdulaziz Center for National Dialogue has resulted in the implementation of the national “Naseej” program, which began five years ago. This program aims to enhance social coexistence and harmony through extensive training programs that include teachers and students.
This program works to instill the values of coexistence, tolerance, dialogue and understanding of the other in the hearts of students and teachers alike.
Students and teachers enrolled in the Naseej program benefited from three main training programs that include community dialogue skills; Which aims to enhance the skills and ethics of dialogue, and community peace-building skills that aim to prepare national leaders, and prepare cadres that aim to build educational cadres specialized in building community peace.
To date, the Naseej program has resulted in the training of 337 accredited trainers, benefiting (38,533) male and female students, and (1109) training courses have been completed. The “Experiences” international training program has also been implemented in cooperation with a group of educational partners in the United States. With the aim of training a group of Saudi teachers in order to enhance their expertise in the field of combating discrimination and promoting human rights, global citizenship, coexistence, understanding and societal harmony, by benefiting from global experiences in this field. These programs were suspended during the pandemic, to be resumed after life returned to normal.
In March 2022, a training program was implemented to prepare trainers entitled (Educational Frameworks between Localization and Globalization), in cooperation with the International Center for Religion and Diplomacy, which was based on designing the content of the program that includes topics of rejecting intolerance, hatred and discrimination and promoting the values of tolerance, understanding, human respect and other human values. In addition to the skills of critical thinking and distinguishing features of violent extremism, 40 trainees from the training leaders in the Ministry of Education participated in the program.
Institutional development to qualify competencies
A national institute for educational professional development was established to take care of developing the skills of male and female teachers to keep pace with the development of its new curricula through intensive training programs aimed at developing their skills in the field of promoting common human values.
In this regard, it cooperates with specialized international organizations to benefit from its expertise in this field. The Ministry links male and female teachers’ performance, competencies, and performance estimates to the size of what they achieve in training courses, whose topics vary between teaching methods, educational planning, education skills and techniques, in addition to training courses in the field of achieving societal coexistence and understanding, rejecting negative and behavioral values in the school community, caring for students’ rights, and treating their behavioral phenomena according to The approved regulations for this in the Ministry’s system, and a Curriculum Development Center was established to take care of the development of courses and textbooks, which began its actual activity in 2019.
The center has worked to achieve a number of goals, including: Keeping pace with the requirements of achieving the Kingdom's Vision 2030, and the requirements of the Fourth Industrial Revolution, raising the level of educational relevance and focus of educational content, preparing students to possess the elements of the knowledge economy and skills of the 21st century, responding to development requirements, future variables and challenges, and international contributions to Curriculum development.
The frameworks and concepts of global curricula are applied to national identity curricula in a way that supports coexistence, tolerance and global citizenship in accordance with internationally recognized standards, and work to develop curricula according to the latest standards approved by specialized international organizations as much as possible, in order to achieve excellence in curricula and their knowledge and skill competence.
In this way, the contents of the Common Core Curriculum Standards document (CCCS), which are internationally approved in many countries of the world, are used, for example, in the development of curricula.
Taher Al-Husari (Jeddah) @taher_ibrahim0
