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A ROADMAP to fully Bahrainise the public education sector is being drawn up, it has emerged.
Education Minister Dr Majid Al Nuaimi said plans are underway to replace expat teachers with young qualified Bahrainis.
The teachers’ college at the Bahrain University is upskilling citizens with an eye on the future, Dr Al Nuaimi told the GDN.
“Bahrain Teachers College (BTC) had its budget increased by 94 per cent this year and the next, and this has helped us expedite plans to get more programmes made available to school administrators and teachers besides freshmen secondary school graduates whose dream job is to become a teacher,” said the minister.
“Ambitions are high and we have a roadmap to fully Bahrainise the teaching sector over the next few years.
“All staffing requirements will be covered by the BTC. We are looking to set up new halls and labs at the college besides programmes that tailor-fit our needs.
“Right now, we are advertising all vacancies for teachers and expatriates are hired only if local candidates are not found. However, eventually, that would stop and we will rely solely on talented Bahrainis.
“Education is the core of development and it should be handled by our citizens.”
Dr Al Nuaimi said hundreds of BTC graduates have already moved to work in schools across the country.
“Capacity at BTC will be increased, and we will also introduce new academic programmes next year which will equip Bahrainis to take up more challenging roles in future.
“We have a lot of Bahraini teachers for certain subjects, while there are a few areas where we don’t have local talents. Our focus is to equip citizens to teach those subjects so that expats can be replaced in future.”
The GDN reported earlier this month that more than two-thirds of family education teachers in government schools are expatriates.
A total of 183 teachers in the discipline are expats while 83 are Bahrainis.
The minister also told MPs in March this year that 3,687 expatriates were under contract with the Education Ministry to provide teaching and other support services in government schools.
He added at the time that 86 expatriate teachers were PhD degree holders, 327 had both Bachelor’s and High Diploma degrees, 295 had Master’s and 845 had Bachelor’s degrees.
Dr Al Nuaimi said contracts of 1,142 expats had been terminated since 2016 until the end of last year (2020).
“We employed 3,653 Bahrainis during the same period,” he added.
The minister had earlier revealed a 10-year strategy to expand Bahrain’s education sector.
It involves building 18 new schools and carrying out maintenance and remodelling of 56 existing institutions.
The 2022-2032 plan aims to provide students with quality education through modern classrooms and buildings, he added.
The 18 new schools alone would cost the government around BD118.3 million.
mohammed@gdn.com.bh
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