His Majesty King Abdullah on Monday directed the government and the Royal Consultative Committee on General Education to establish a complementary relation between them to face up to education-related challenges, break out from traditional teaching methodology and promote creative thinking among learners.
Chairing part of the committee's first meeting at the Royal Court, where Her Majesty Queen Rania was present, the King urged panel members to come up with practical ideas for the development of education programmes and curricula, in a manner that bolsters creativity and excellence.
Last month, King Abdullah issued directives for the formation of the committee to provide entities overseeing the education process in the Kingdom with ideas, plans and suggestions to serve as guidelines for shaping up national education strategies.
At the meeting, His Majesty underlined the significance of the committee's task and urged its members to move ahead with their mission.
Addressing the meeting, the King reiterated that developing education is one of the foremost priorities for the country and a main pillar in national development plans.
“For us, this committee is the most important one,” the King said, expressing his full support for it, as he emphasised that the challenges and the problems facing the education sector require firm decision-making responsibilities.
“What I want from you is to deal with the challenges and the problems with utter seriousness,” the King said.
Outlining the priorities, King Abdullah said the committee is tasked with coming up with mechanisms to develop students' cognitive abilities, develop teachers' performance and examine means to provide equal learning opportunities across the Kingdom.
During the meeting, the King entrusted Queen Rania to supervise the committee's work and follow up on its work and recommendations.
Emphasising the need to commence the process of upgrading curricula and looking for the most qualified people to carry out the task and train teachers, the King underlined the importance of suggesting mechanisms necessary to build an effective partnership among the private sector, local communities and concerned authorities.
Queen Rania said the committee should become an effective partner that offers a helping hand to the Ministry of Education in developing the education process.
The committee will establish contacts between government and concerned private establishments. It will also establish contacts with scholars and education experts to bring about the desired change, the head of the committee, Marwan Kamal, said at the meeting.