Saudi schools have opened their doors for students after one year and a half of closure due to the COVID pandemic and the imposed restrictions that prevented class attendance and pushed towards remote education. This new experience has been a turning point for the education system and will be the core of a new phase in which the country will mix the traditional and innovative methods to create a uniform education process.
Hamad Al-Sheikh, Saudi education minister, announced the distribution of 71 million books in light of the preparations for the new academic year.
In a press event, Al-Sheikh explained the details and mechanisms of what he called an "exceptional season," saying the ministry has formed 34 new curricula including the critical thinking material, and new editions of around 90 currently used books.
The inclusion of critical thinking in the Saudi education curricula is aimed at reducing the impacts of the traditional teaching methods and the unsatisfying and inefficient tautology, and at hindering the leak of fishy ideas touted by ideological groups to fuel their chaotic projects.
Dalia Tunsi, who participated in the formation of the preliminary drafts of the critical thinking and philosophy curricula with the Saudi education ministry, said: "According to the suggestions made at the World Economic Forum (Davos) concerning the educational requirement in the labor market, there are 10 skills that should be provided to grow a generation ready for the future of business. Most of these skills focus on teamwork and strategic and critical thinking."
"Most of these skills aim at founding the benefit of the doubt which helps develop scrutiny and sifting, in addition to personal dialogue about what the student could see or hear," she explained in an interview with Asharq Al-Awsat.
"Critical thinking should be part of the educational process. It can be used as a tool that accompanies the student throughout his educational path. It should also be a foundational part of the student's thinking and dialogues aimed at training him to fill the gaps left deliberately in the educational and experimental curricula," she continued.
About the role of the community in this training process, she said: "The community is another front because children have access to many types of content on the internet. The world is open, and the pace of knowledge is unprecedented, which is reflected in our children's questions that often exceed our expectations and capacities."
Researcher Najah al-Otaibi believes that the critical thinking curriculum is one of the major developments added by the ministry into the education system, as it has a long-term impact on future generations.
Critical thinking will enhance the students' flexibility and objectivity when it comes to evaluating things and addressing problems, along with mental openness and independence in decision making.
Being a critical person helps in developing some characteristics such as tolerance and rejection of prejudgments.
"The ministry has taken serious steps to eradicate the underlying curriculum problem through multidirectional policies like the development of content, and boosting students' skills," she told Asharq Al-Awsat.
Hassan al-Sharif, a philosophy teacher at Taibah University, said teaching critical thinking without using philosophy is like trying to teach a language through its grammar rules only, which is a tough task.
"Teaching philosophy is the best way to enhance the mental preliminaries needed for critical thinking like the epistemic doubt, open-mindedness, cognitive curiosity, and epistemic humility. Without these preliminaries, critical thinking skills would diminish. Also, polishing the critical thinking skills requires long-term training until it becomes a habit, which could be done by including these skills in all academic phases," he told Asharq Al-Awsat.
