OPINION — By Amal al Jahwariya — The Arabic language has lately become one of the most serious bugbears in both educational circles and families due to its weak standard. It is a negative phenomenon that is aggravating each day despite the educational progress that was made in the Sultanate and resulted in the educational standard becoming on a par with advanced countries. The Education Ministry is embracing innovative methods to arrive at root solutions to the problem of weakness at reading and writing, however no progress has been made as yet.
Some students in the Post Basic level of education do not know how to read and write, some even cannot write their names correctly and that makes us wonder how could they possibly pass from a lower to upper level?
Perfect language skills are the main gateway to excel in education since the educational curriculum is based on Arabic. Eradication of this phenomenon requires collective efforts from the part of parents, education officials and other stakeholders. Students spend long time at home after the end of the school day, they also have lengthy vacations and holidays, during these hiatuses students’ ties with the learning process are severed which causes the knowledge obtained during the school year to go into oblivion. To avoid this happening we have to make them accustomed to the habit of reading so that they can keep the language intact. Failing to do so, there will be no need for parents, teacher or whomsoever concerned to wonder why students have become so weak in Arabic. Parents have to bear in mind that their onus is not just about providing food and shelter for their kids. Most importantly they have to care for their children’s education and make sure that they are doing well at schools because today there is neither place nor chance for half-educated people to lead a comfortable life in an increasingly complicated world.
The new generations are being negatively affected by the encroaching technology that sapped their language skills as most e-mails and phone messages are often written in bad colloquial language with casual expressions that are far from the standard language used as in classrooms. Needless to say by so doing students will not make their language standard any better.
How can students improve their language while some teachers use informal language in Arabic classes?
The media is not playing any effective role as to improve the language level. A short time ago TV channels had educational programmes that aimed at improving the kids’ language skills. Today these programmes have vanished leaving a huge vacuum in TV programmes.
The problem of weak standard of Arabic is more complicated than it seems to be as it involves multiple factors. So the Education Ministry’s efforts are not enough to stamp off this negative phenomenon. Everyone should know his role and do what needs to be done. All stakeholders have to work collectively because the scale of the problem is bigger than to be tackled individually.