The Integration of Twenty-First Century Skills into the Curriculum of General Education in Arab countries

Introduction

Based on the vision of the UNESCO Regional Center for Quality and Excellence in Education to be “the reliable regional reference for education quality and excellence”, and its mission to “provide innovative services for improving education quality and excellence across the Arab countries, and introducing a leading impact through innovative systems, standards and measures, and sustainable regional and international relations” and based on RCQE endeavors to disseminate knowledge and educational best practices, support and prepare high quality research on issues of education quality and excellence to meet the needs of Arab countries as well as supporting the achievement of targets and indicators of the SDG4 2030 in the Arab countries, the study on the Integration of 21st Century Skills in Curricula in General Education in Arab Countries has been prepared under the supervision of RCQE. This concept note summarizes the study, its annexes, and national reports, and analyzes the reality of integrating twenty-first century skills into curricula in general education at the regional and international levels, with the aim of identifying gaps in practices in Arab countries comparing to global experiences, to reach a proposed framework for integrating twenty-first century skills in the curricula of general education in the Arab countries in light of International best relevant practices. UNESCO (2014) declared, in its policy document on education goals post -2015, how the demand for skills is evolving, and explained how the changing requirements of the quality and level of knowledge, skills and competencies lead to today &# 39;s economies based on knowledge and opportunities that are not sufficient to reach higher levels of learning. It also emphasized that the lack of these skills means that individuals are limited in their abilities to innovate or even imitate the possibilities offered and leads consequently to difficulty in introducing productive improvements to the economy. The concept of 21st century skills was guided by the importance of building and developing students' abilities by teaching them the most relevant, useful and globally required skills, in addition to the necessity of giving skills a significant priority in the curriculum. Education in the Arab world was included in UNESCO's call for the development of 21st century skills for students. In response to supporting UNESCO's actions to achieve this goal,
RCQE main projects included the topic of integrating 21st century skills into the curriculum in general education, which is the focus of this study. The purpose is to achieve the following:

1. Identifying the best international experiences and practices in integrating 21st century skills into the curriculum in general education.
2. Providing a proposed framework to describe how to integrate 21st century skills into the curriculum in Arab countries. In light of the foregoing, the regional workshop will be held in cooperation with the Ministry of Education in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, under the auspices of His Excellency the Minister of Education and Chairman of RCQE Board of Directors, Mr. Youssef bin Abdullah Al-Bunyan. The purpose of the workshop is to review the outcomes of the project study and discuss recommendations and proposals that help decision makers define what suits their countries according to the different circumstances influencing policy decision-making, educational frameworks, and work to develop them, especially when they have comparative and developmental frameworks that have been studied in an extensive scientific manner, the results of which can be relied upon in developing policies and systems for integrating the skills of the first century through the curricula in Arab educational systems according to the best current global experiences and practices, and providing solutions to the challenges they face; which opens new horizons to learn about different method that may be innovative and applicable, which may contribute to benefiting from it in Arab countries, to develop their local systems in line with the changes of the twenty-first century.

Objective

• 1. Enhancing participations and discussions at the regional level in Arab countries about the standards and mechanisms for integrating the skills of the 21^st century into the curricula in the Arab education systems.
• 2. Reviewing the outcomes of the study conducted by the UNESCO Regional Center for Quality and Excellence in Education (Integrating Twenty-First Century Skills into the Curricula of General Education  in the Arab Countries) in the light of international experiences and through setting guidelines for the benefit of the ministries of education and curricula development centers in  Arab countries to enhance the policies of integrating skills of the twenty first century into the curricula in our Arab education systems according to the best international experiences and practices.
• 3. Supporting the efforts of education systems in Arab countries to achieve the fourth goal of the sustainable development goals (SDG4).
• 4. Reviewing a proposed framework for integrating twenty-first century skills in the light of international best practices into curricula of general education in Arab countries.

Topics

1.Reviewing the outcomes of the study on topics related to policies and systems of integrating twenty-first century skills in light of international best practices in curricula of general education in Arab countries.

2. The most prominent leading global practices and trends relevant to integrating twenty-first century skills in the light of international best practices and their reflection on educational reform trends.

3. The proposed framework for integrating twenty-first century skills in the curricula of general education in Arab countries in light of international best practices.

Participants

The Workshop will be attended in person and virtually (via ZOOM) by several educational decision makers, youth, experts, researchers, academics, teachers, school directors and representatives of ministries of education, national committees, and national, regional and internationals institutions and organizations.

Workshop Strategy

The workshop will be held for one day to review the outcomes of the study on “the Integration of 21st Century Skills in Curricula in General Education in Arab Countries” including the proposed framework.  participants will have the chance to communicate and share best practices. The participation is open to specialists and interested persons in education quality and excellence.

Workshop Language

The language of the workshop will be Arabic, and simultaneous interpretation into English will be provided Via ZOOM application.

Organizers

UNESCO Regional Center for Quality and Excellence in Education in cooperation with the Ministry of Education in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia.

Invited Organizations

1. UNESCO regional centers and offices.

2. Regional and international organizations.

3. Ministries of Education in Arab countries.

4. Universities in Arab countries.

5. National Committees for Education, Culture and Science.

6. Education Assessment bodies in Arab countries.

7. Experts, specialists and interested individuals.

Expected Outcomes

     The main expected outcomes of the workshop are as follows:1. Common perceptions about the status of policies and systems for integrating twenty-first century skills into the curricula of general education in Arab countries within the Arab countries subject to the study.2. Identifying and expanding the identification of best practices (regional and global) in policies and systems in a number of the developed countries for integrating twenty-first century skills into the curricula of general education in Arab countries.3. Recommendations for educational decision makers in higher education systems to develop policies and systems for integrating twenty-first century skills into the curricula of general education in Arab countries in light of international best practices.