In addition to participants representing 44 countries, the girl Sham Bakour, the champion of the Arab Reading Challenge initiative for Syria, participated on Saturday in the final qualifiers for the initiative, which is held at the level of the Arab world virtually.
Syria is participating for the first time in the initiative that the United Arab Emirates is setting up. 61,000 participants from 16 educational districts in all Syrian governorates took part in the initiative, but the seven-year-old girl, Bakour, won, during the qualifying stages of the initiative locally, according to the initiative’s coordinator in Syria, Ali Al-Abbas.
In a statement to a SANA reporter, Al-Abbas indicated that the tests were carried out virtually through a jury in the United Arab Emirates, to determine the champion of the reading challenge at the level of the Arab world. The closing ceremony for announcing the results will be on the 10th of next November, with the participation of a delegation from Syria that includes the top ten students in the initiative at the level of Syria.
Al-Abbas praised the abilities of the girl Bakour, a second-grade student in the basic education stage from Aleppo, expressing his hope that she will win the title of champion of the initiative at the Arab level in the sixth round.
After the end of the Arab competition, Sham Bakour expressed her happiness at reaching the title of Syrian champion, and her hope of obtaining the Arab title to raise the name of her country high. She noted that she is very interested in reading, and is fluent in speaking Standard Arabic, which enhanced her participation and opportunities of qualification to advanced stages of the competition.
It is noteworthy that the Ministry of Education, in cooperation with the Revolutionary Youth Union, announced in December last year the opening of the door for participation for students of different academic levels in the Arab Reading Challenge initiative for the year 2021-2022, launched by the United Arab Emirates.
52 countries and more than 21 million students from 96,000 schools and 134,000 supervisors participated in the fifth round of the challenge.
Inas Abdulkareem