EDUCATION: A Letter Addressed to Mr. Osman Mahjoub
Dean Of The Institute Of Bakht AL-Ruda

Secondary Education:

1. This phase is basically an extension for the primary education. It is aspired to be accessible to the largest possible number of boys and girls, so that whoever deserves it receives it. Given the present conditions of our country, it shouldn’t be considered as university education; it suffices now to be labeled as secondary. I think we should respite the university education for a later period, after the expansion of the country’s financial sources, and after the educational base broadens at both its primary and secondary stages.

In my mind, at this moment, is a sort of secondary education that is at a level above our present secondary education, and below the one currently provided at the Technical Institute. Yet, this one has to be within the reach of all people. In the meantime, we may fill in the gab of the country’s request for technical know-how by sending distinguished students to universities abroad. Those may study to high degrees the various modern techniques and sciences (i.e., engineering, medicine, mathematics, agriculture, animal breading, plants, ornaments, music, and so forth). When they return, they simplify and transform the best of all what they learnt in a context handy even to those at the primary level. Through this the graduates are enabled to help improved living standards in villages and in remote rural areas.

2. At this stage of education, needed quotas of various professions are specified in response to the country’s special needs for development, and according to the natural talents and preparation of the admitted students. In subordination, at different government departments, an in-service professional training should be administered in order to let the graduates gain additional and updated experience. As well, it is aspired that scholarships to study abroad be assigned for distinguished professionals to learn more on the topics they are specifically good at.

3. For this level, books of multi origins and in diverse languages may be translated to the Arabic language, as the teaching in all stages has to be in Arabic. Foreign languages are taught only for the distinguished students who will study or specialize abroad. Such a group of excellent students may be selected and specially prepared in separate classes, following the phase of primary education (i.e., at age seventeen), and they may start learning English language since then. For the rest of the students, who continue on the regular secondary schooling, the media of study must be Arabic. I am not absent-minded, regarding the serious difficulties of book translation and of teacher training demanded for such a grand project. Yet, at least, a beginning is possible; and a phased plan is inevitable to attain the required translations and publications, and the desired numbers of adequately trained teachers.