Translation of school curricula
By Salah-al-Din MUSTAFA, Al-Kartoum daily newspaper
KHARTOUM, Dec 11, 2004 — Minister of Education Babikir Ahmad Nahar has declared that an agreement had been reached between a joint committee from the Ministry of Education and educational experts from the Sudan Peoples Liberation Movement which stipulated the translation of school curriculum into English in preparation for their being taught in the south after the signing of the peace agreement.
In fact the curricula committee had already started this process when the issue arose regarding the Christian education curriculum and methods of teaching it.
Before discussions started about translation from Arabic into English, I expected there would be some reassessment of the current curriculum being taught at elementary and secondary schools, especially since the coming stage is a one of building Sudan on a national basis far from ideologist’s adventures.
It is well known that the current curriculum were brought about in accordance with the theory of (Islamization of scholarship), one of the pillars of the Islamic cultural project which preachers and theorists had the ambition of exporting to all Arab and Islamic countries. This project was brought about after the ‘violent demolition’ of half a century worth of experiences and expertise.
Following the overthrowing of bases and curriculum put in place by experts in education we are still, 15 years later, floundering and are still at a “nursery” stage, for we have neither harvested the Arabic language and the Islamic culture nor have we retained our students excellence in the English language!!
No one will disagree that the current curriculum are “primitive” in terms of shape and methods of teaching. They depend on cramming and dictating at a time when education is turning towards developing mental capabilities, cultivating talents and converting the student from a parrot who repeats all that is said to him without awareness to an always inquisitive questioning critic.
Moreover, the curriculum currently being taught is lacking qualified trained teachers. In addition to this observation, these curriculum is full of big mistakes which have been traced by Al-Tijani Said, in the cultural section of Al-Sahafah newspaper. There are many mistakes and fallacies in comprehension and literature books for the three secondary years, and the curriculum for the elementary stage is inundated with many strange and bewildering things!!
If the people of the south hope a translation of the curriculum will distance their sons from being immersed into Arab and Islamic culture then how can they accept a translation of the curriculum that was built in order to firmly establish this culture, in addition to the mistakes that inundate this curriculum?!
Great efforts need to be put into the issue of education – following the establishment of peace – and a review must be carried out into the devastation and destruction of an establishment whose first bricks were put in place by brilliant pioneers. The curriculum must be dealt with in a great vision, embodying national unity, distancing it from those adventures we are now paying the price for.
Material from the BBC Monitoring Service.