Sending Expeditions And Specialization Of Educational Scholarship To Study Folklore

The Ministry of Guidance and Education in Bahrain Kingdom has initiated accommodating the subject of the popular culture in the general curriculum of the secondary level as an optional study. Such a great initiation has drawn the attention of the International Organization of Folk Art, IOV. The presidential council of the IOV has rendered its congratulations to the IOV such encouraging motive for the educational concern. The IOV has recommended its regional office of the Middle East and North Africa to give the appropriate support for the success of this initiation. The office also recommends the promotion of the co-operation for the sustainability of the trial and its stability in the curriculum. The realization of these recommendations will remarkably help promote the national educational system.

The experts of the regional office of the IOV have held several meetings with the educational supervisors to give every possible technical support to enrich the educational material. Certainly those experts have shown a sincere enthusiasm for the success of the initiation through teaching the subject and training the staff. One of the problems of the popular culture is that most of the people do not know that neither it is an epistemological subject nor that it acquires a special nature for the research and learning. Moreover, many people abuse this material in teaching and making fatwa or advisory. Such an abuse is risky and should be fought. Going forward in teaching the subject of traditional culture would certainly help qualify those teachers. Mastering the topic, those teachers will be experts in communicating with other sectors of the society, the artists, the informants and the practitioner for instance. From the forum of this magazine, al-thagafa al-shaabiyya we are congratulating the Ministry of Guidance and Education for excreting all these efforts and for the success of its initiation. We are only requesting the Ministry to afford some scholarships and send expeditions to study folklore in the developed countries. We are requesting the Ministry also to encourage the brilliant students to specialize in this discipline so as to realize the strategy of His Highness, King of the Bahrain of the building up of the generations of the future.

Editorial Board