This is a message to the transitional government,
which confirmed that one of its priorities is the reform of the education
sector. Has the government already begun the reform of this sector?

Ameen Rihani defines the Renaissance, by saying ‘I
understand the renaissance by the revolution on the old, which has become
sterile, and the old, which has become obsolete, and the old, which was corrupt
from the start, whether it was in believes or sciences or literature.

There is no doubt that the success of general
policies depends on the success of policies directed at education in all its
levels  and in order for these policies to succeed and achieve their
goals, the education policies should be successful and achieve its objectives.

The reform of education/education reform can only
be achieved by a radical change to all those who occupied positions of
leadership in the Ministry of Education and were responsible for public
policies for the sector, which was the reason for the failure and collapse of
the sector and resulted in the collapse of state institutions.

Unfortunately the same group, which was at the top
of hierarchy of this ministry during Gaddffi’s reign, has been reselected.  one example is the deputy minister, who was
the director of curriculum and private education and the further example is the
director of  curriculum centre. Furthermore they are other ministry
officials who have been reappointed, who must also bear the burden of serious
mistakes committed in education. These mistakes began with the signing of
contracts of flawed curriculum and adoption of Singapore’s curriculum.

One example of flawed curriculum is teaching
a topic in maths curriculum for year six of primary education, which is overly
difficult for learners to understand. The topic deals with ratio and proportion.
This can be seen in (Maths book , First semester, Exercise 4, Page 91) which
tackles six problems that cannot be understood or solved by most maths teachers
due to difficulty of the topic.  There are also many disadvantages of this
curriculum, which should be reviewed by the ministry.

And what about the assessment marks for subjects
of multiples of 40 instead of 100? This system of marking is confusing and
incomprehensible to most learners, parents and teachers.

The education ministry produced a study plan on
its website which begins with mistakes in the title of the document that was
signed and adopted by the ministry officials and parked errors (parked errors -
don’t know what this means) in the table of the plan. They also produced
schemes of work characterized with lack of debugging and modifying curricula
and defects in the division of the lessons.

The ministry has said nothing about the summative
assessment method of the electronic examinations, which is not suitable for
assessing subjects such as mathematics, Arabic and other materials. Has the
ministry changed the method?

Anyone can clearly see the poor performance of the
education ministry; all Libyans were waiting for plans for the future outlined
by the Ministry to reform the sector since the liberation of Tripoli .Isn’t it
to be expected that those interested in the education sector will be able to find
out everything about education on the ministry’s website, But its website only
broadcasts news about meetings, events and lectures, and most of the icons and
options for the site are either ineffective or outdated.

Has the ministry reformed and purged the centre of
technologies and maintenance of educational facilities by dismissal of everyone
who was corrupted and not just dismissal of its director? Have the
contracts of the board marks been reviewed? Is the ministry aware that
companies have been assigned to import Chinese board marks with bad quality and
companies which imported good quality German-made board marks have been
abandoned, despite the cost of German-made board marks being cheaper than
Chinese ones?

Is the ministry aware that the director of
equippings at that centre was professing by saying (he loves the brother
leader) and the revolutionary legitimacy was important criterion for his
arrival to that office?

Is it possible, at this critical time, the
ministry allows previous contracts of schools’ furniture and offices to pass of
which corruption was the most important features? these contracts are worth
more than  63 million Libyan dinars?

What about the smart boards which cost more than
3,000 Libyan dinars each? It has been said that the ministry would
introduce the smart board to schools where most teachers can’t use computers, let
alone use the Internet and e-learning.

I’ve kept asking these questions over and over again;
first in my program on Radio Libya Alhurra FM in September and October last
year and then in a TV program in which I was a guest and directed some of the
these questions to the Minister of Education, who was a guest of the same
channel the next day, but did not answer any of the questions I put forward. I
also have sent these questions via e-mail to the website of the ministry and
the transitional government and posted an article about the issue on many
Libyan websites including the education minister facebook page.

Finally the education replied to my article on
Friday 13 Jan 2012 saying ‘Mr.
Fhelboom, this is first time I came across your article. I am sorry, I have not
heard these repetitive appeals and questions, you are free to criticize whoever
you want but I do not agree with the criticism of some people mentioned in your
article. I agree with your view that the difficulty of many topics in the new curriculum
and difficulty of applying this curriculum in Libyan schools at this present
time. I do not have on my own the authority to issue a decision to cancel curriculum
or change the educational system. Therefore, we have adopted the Educational
Forum which will discuss all matters relating to curriculum and education
policies in our country, and it will involve teachers and educational
inspectors in addition to the head teachers and civil society institutions,
parents and students. We hope your participation in this event. The forum will
start its activities in the beginning of February in all Libyan cities, and it
will be under the supervision of educational guidance Office of in each city.
My best regards and respect.’

Despite
the minister has not answered many of my questions but the reply was a sign of
a new democratic free Libya.

Last but
not least I wish to see the answers to all of these questions.

Reda
Fhelboom

Journalist
and Political activists

Co-founder of the Libyan association
for free media (LA4FM) and Tadhamon Association for human rights
support (fhelboom@yahoo.com)