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Kuwait has appealed to UNESCO to help the country to reconstruct its
education system so that Kuwaitis will learn to ‘count on themselves’ in
the future. Mohammed Khodari, undersecretary of state for education in Kuwait’s
outgoing government, explained that Kuwait’s wealth has led its citizens
to ‘look down on’ manual work and professional training. Khodari said the
new system should draw more students into science and technology subjects.

The complete rethink of the present system would cover everything from
the curriculum to teacher training, textbooks, scientific equipment, student
assessment and the management of education.

Officials at UNESCO headquarters in Paris say that they have never had
a request for total restructuring of an education system before. Many are
sceptical about whether Kuwait can achieve self-sufficiency through education
and training.

‘You can’t change mentalities or create a technical class overnight.
It will take 10 years at least and of course the teachers would have to
be foreigners,’ says one official at UNESCO.

Kuwaiti education has been business oriented for several decades. Foreign
nationals make up the working and professional classes. The emirate’s leaders
said last week that they aimed to reduce the number of foreign residents
in the country so that Kuwaiti nationals would be in the majority.

The first UNESCO mission to Kuwait to assess its needs in the field
of science and education has just ended. A Kuwaiti delegation will go to
the agency’s headquarters next month to discuss projects in more detail.
UNESCO has also set up a high-level task force to assess needs and offer
emergency reconstruction plans for educational institutions in a number
of countries affected by the Gulf War. These include Turkey, Jordan, Egypt
and some Asian nations faced with the sudden, massive influx of expatriate
workers from the Gulf region.

UNESCO says that a mission to Iraq to assess its needs has been ‘agreed
in principle’ and is only awaiting a formal Iraqi request and guarantees
of safety for a visiting delegation.