Why the National Strategy for Secondary Education? [Archives:2007/1075/Opinion]
By: Dr. Abdulaziz Bin Habtour
The national unity and establishment of the Republic of Yemen on May 22, 1990 constituted the first steps for the new stage of the development process in different aspects of the social, economic, and political life. Such comprehensive development was established in conformity with a strategic vision meeting all the demands of progress and advancement in a way coping with the rapid growth of science and technology in the modern age.
On this basis, the unity state approved, since the very beginning of its establishment, the long-term scientific planning principle for the different projects of the comprehensive development process. This principle was aimed at making a distinctive move in updating all the frameworks of the political, social, and economic system for the unity state that ensured continued progress of different sectors in a harmonious and balanced manner.
Starting from this goal, the foundations of which were established by the unity state, under President Ali Abdullah Saleh, who built Yemen's development and future, the new state witnessed numerous achievements in different social, political, and economic fronts of life. These achievements are pondered upon as a natural and logical product of political and economic move for the process of construction contained in the General People Congress's platform. Prior to the unity, nothing of this had been achieved.
Regarding the educational system, although the unity state inherited a fragmentary education system and different school syllabuses, there have been a lot of improvements. The unity state formed a committee concerned with the education sector, which was authorized to work on unifying syllabuses and the educational institutions. During the early days of the unity state, students were enrolled in schools and institutes, the latter of which constituted a prominent barrier to efforts aimed at improving the education system. In the meantime, the government was pinning great hope in the improved education system to make generations armed with science and knowledge, as well as values of the national personality and identity, in order to play an integral role in shaping Yemen's future.
Despite poor situations, scarce resources, lack of bond between outputs of public, technical, secondary and university education and incompatibility between specializations and demands of the labor market, the education sector has reached various achievements. It unified the school syllabuses, merged schools and institutes together under the Ministry of Education, increased the number of schools and boosted girl's education. Such achievements strongly motivated the political leadership and education officials to review the situation of education in the country and shape its future in the light of comprehensive and scientific evaluation of the experience.
Additionally, the concerned authorities assessed the successes and achievements so far reached in the area of education in order to shape the future vision for improving and updating primary education. The experience related with implementing the National Strategy for Primary Education (2002 – 2015) has proved the great success reached in the sector. This motivated senior education officials to review the situation of secondary education, considering it the link between primary and higher education. Over the past two years, the process of preparing the document of the National Strategy for Secondary Education (2007 – 2015) was given top priority in order to help achieve a list of goals, the most prominent of which is strengthening individuals' sense of responsibility toward secondary education. Secondary education is very significant in the current stage due to its being related with President Saleh's platform that concentrated on developing and improving secondary education quantitatively and qualitatively.
According to Saleh's platform, improving the secondary education helps school leavers to enroll in universities. On this basis, the First Conference for Secondary Education was held in Sana'a on July 17 – 19. The conference focused on implementing the National Strategy for Secondary Education, which included numerous themes for diagnosing core and content of secondary education in its current situation. It also, laid more emphasis on discussing the various challenges facing the strategy, the document of which covered a deep scientific vision on the quality of syllabuses, education programs, teachers and the fair distribution of education opportunities. The document specified the timeframe for implementing the strategy.
As the conference was serious about the strategy's document, this makes us live up to the responsibility for 15 years to achieve all the goals and objectives that are essential for the national development. Implementing the strategy will help enhance relations between Yemen and other donor countries.
Abdulaziz Bin Habtour is Deputy Minister of Education.
Source: Al-Thawra State-run Daily
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