Bahrain Minister bats for compulsory education

Manama: Minister of Education Dr Majid Al Nuaimi, who attended the Parliamentary Services Committee meeting yesterday, discussed a draft law to amend the provisions of Law No 27/2005 regarding compulsory education.

Dr Al Nuaimi was highlighting the Education Ministry’s visions on the amendment proposed by the panel, aimed at increasing compulsory basic education for children from the age group of 6-15 years to 5-15 years.

The Minister said that starting education from the age of six is based on educational and psychological studies as to when a child becomes eligible to read and write. Dr Al Nuaimi pointed out that six is the compulsory school age in majority of the countries, which is mentioned in 2015 Education For All (EFA) Global Monitoring Report (GMR).

He said that the amendment could result in huge financial and human costs. The Ministry has already made studies in this regard during the previous years, which showed that adding five-year-old children to the compulsory basic education programme requires a huge budget, and this is not consistent with the financial reality at the present time, he added.

He also pointed out that the Ministry established a department for compulsory education that works on returning dropouts or provide education for children who were denied a compulsory education year. Dr Al Nuaimi affirmed that the Ministry exerts tireless efforts to support the kindergartens’ sector through follow-up, training and provision of free books, adding that eight kindergartens are expected to be licensed during the coming period. He also asserted the Ministry’s keenness on providing the best educational services and free books, as well as transporting more than 34,000 students to schools daily.