JEDDAH – The Education Ministry has taken steps to improve Arabic of students at various levels after studies showed poor performance by many of them in their mother tongue, which is the language of the Holy Qur’an.
The ministry said it will expedite efforts to establish a national Arabic language center to enhance speaking, writing, hearing and listening capabilities of school and university students.
“The new center will provide consultancy, design and develop curricula, prepare working programs for schools and universities and train teachers,” said a ministry official.
The center will also conduct research, prepare programs for students, carry out corrective studies, hold tests to evaluate the standard of students, make educational films and organize workshops and dialogues.
“It will also produce specialized technology to support Arabic language,” the official said.
The center will give priority to development of curricula and criteria, method of teaching, training of teachers and design effective teaching programs, he added.
The ministry decided to establish the center after a study conducted by King Abdulaziz City of Science and Technology showed that only 6.2 percent of students attained perfection in their Arabic capabilities in terms of writing, reading and speaking.
The study was conducted on 8,000 Class VI students at two levels (50 percent, which is the mark for passing at schools) and 80 percent, which is international level of proficiency.
The students achieved a success rate of between 47.5 and 80.4 percent in writing Arabic words properly. The students received proficiency rates between 40.2 and 25.5 percent in other areas as well as 36.8 and 41.8 percent and 42 and 46.7 percent in learning different language capabilities.
The study pointed out that students had made mistakes in writing Arabic sentences while they were poor in Arabic grammar and numbering. Wide use of slang was another major issue.
“Students also made mistakes while copying an Arabic text,” the official said.
