Culture Ministry honors participants in alternative learning program

DAMASCUS, Jul.4, (ST)- In recognition of their efforts as being the first building block for the future of generations, the Ministry of Culture honored on Monday a group of teachers from the Ministry of Culture and Education, the Syrian National Committee for UNESCO and the local community participating in the Alternative Learning Program for Youth in Syria, established in cooperation with UNESCO.

During the ceremony, which was held in the Arab Cultural Center in Mezzeh, a documentary film was screened on adult education and cultural development courses held by the governorates of Damascus and its countryside and targeted 5,000 young men and women, aged 15 and over, who are not enrolled in school.

The Minister of Culture, Lubana Mushawah, referred to the importance of building young people intellectually, scientifically and cognitively with the aim of building the future of Syria. She stressed the need to strengthen the directions aimed at eliminating illiteracy as one of the development challenges that require concerted efforts by all to overcome it.

The Director of Adult Education and Cultural Development at the Ministry of Culture, Bassam Dayyoub, said that the goal of the program was to train 5,000 students from Damascus, Damascus countryside and Aleppo in order to find alternative learning within a short period that lasted for less than a month and it had a positive response.

He added that there is a demand to repeat this experience with UNESCO.

The Secretary-General of the Syrian National Committee for UNESCO at the Ministry of Education, Nidal Al-Hassan, affirmed the importance  of the national program on alternative learning to provide educational and intellectual assistance to those who have problems in reading, writing and arithmetic, which was launched at the beginning of this year and lasted for 20 days.

Basma Qaddour