BAHRAIN- UNESCO Project
‘Support of the Comprehensive Development of Secondary Commercial Education in Bahrain- Phase II’
Curriculum Review of Secondary Education Commercial Subjects
Under a UNESCO-Bahrain project to Develop Commercial Education in Bahrain a workshop was organised from 22-26 March 2009 to update the curricula for commercial subjects offered in the Unified Stream of secondary schools in Bahrain. The workshop was organised by the Curriculum Directorate in cooperation with UNESCO Section for Secondary, Science, Technical and Vocational Education and held at Bahrain Technical and Vocational Education Centre of Excellence, A-Muharraq.
The opening session was held on the morning of Sunday 22 March and attended by Mrs. Latifa Al-Mahmoud, Director of Curricula, Ministry of Education, Mr. Salah Al-Hamad, Chief of the TVET Centre of Excellence and senior staff of the Centre and UNESCO consultants. The Director thanked UNESCO for its continuing help to develop commercial education and noted that since the last review in 2002 which was also carried out with assistance from UNESCO a lot of changes has taken place in the labour market as well as the education system in Bahrain with the introduction of the Unified Stream.
Twenty senior technical teachers, curriculum specialists and four UNESCO international consultants participated in the workshop. Over the five days of the workshop competency based curricula for 20 subjects were revised and update to meet the changing market needs and the rapid use of information and communication technology and e-commerce. The participants also agreed on plans to initiate the writing or revising the textbooks for the commercial subjects, and distributed the work among the teams of national experts to enable them to complete first drafts in time for the materials to be reviewed at a subsequent workshop to be held in June 2009.
On Thursday 26 June the closing session of the workshop was attended by Mrs. Lulwa Al-Khalifa, Assistant Under-Secretary for Curricula and Training, Mr. Hasan Saleh Sulaibeekh, Director of Technical and Vocational Education, and Mr. Salah Al-Hamad Chief of the TVE Centre of Excellence and senior staff of the Centre.
Mrs. Al-Khalifa expressed her appreciation for UNESCO assistance to keep commercial education in Bahrain up-to-date with changes in technology and ICT in particular. Since 2002 UNESCO has helped revise the curricula and produce new textbooks as well as capacity building and training of teachers and staff. The participants in the workshop were then presented with ‘Certificate of Participation’.