The 5th July saw the launch of a 5-day workshop, hosted by the United Nations Development Programme in Libya, the Secretariat for Education and the United Nations Educational Scientific and Cultural Organisation (UNESCO), and aimed at offering a final review of primary and secondary school curricula in the three major disciplines of social science, engineering and economics. The event brought together 45 national consultants and 11 international consultants, who will amend and validate the new curricula.
The workshop marked the culmination of six months of curricula development and review, carried out by committees made up of university experts, teachers, inspectors and retired educational sector employees, chosen from across the country.
It is also the product of a ten-year history of co-operation between UNDP Libya, the Secretariat for Education and UNESCO. Previous joint efforts have seen the launch of a number of secondary school curricula, as well as the modernization of vocational training programmes.
In his opening speech, Mr. Brian Gleeson, UNDP Libya Resident Representative emphasized that “investment in education is an investment in the future of our country and the future of our young people.” The overarching aim of the workshop is to enhance the capacities of the Libyan labour force and to combat youth unemployment, through the development of modernized curricula that furnish young Libyans with the skills needed in today’s increasingly diverse and technologically advanced labour market.
Mr. Gleeson, and Ms. Amal Elmoghrabi, UNDP National Programme Analyst, also offered three recommendations to maximize the benefits of these current curricula reviews. They highlighted the importance of evaluating and monitoring successes when implementing these curricula, the need to train teachers to deliver the material effectively and the requirement that textbooks are accessible and modernized, in order to appeal to younger generations.
Following the finalization of these curricula as a result of this workshop, textbooks will be produced and will be distributed throughout schools across the country in the next three years.

Interview with a counterpart   Dr. Abughania director of Curricula Development and Educational Research           Q: What is so important about today’s workshop? It marks the final review by national and international consultants of our new curricula for economics, social science and engineering. We have already done a lot of work in this area, and we have been developing curricula and designing textbooks in a large range of subjects such as history, geography, sports, Islamic culture, Arabic language, English, French, Swahili, basic sciences and mathematics. Q: Why were these consultants chosen to review the new curricula? We worked very closely with UNESCO on this, as they helped us select CVs of national and international consultants. For subjects such as social science and economics, we chose consultants from countries like Jordan, Syria and Tunisia, as it helped to share best practices with individuals from the Arab region, who had similar priorities to us. When it comes to engineering, we have two English consultants with us today. For sciences like engineering, the cultural context is less significant, so we were able to make use of these experts. Q: What will happen after today’s workshop? Firstly we have launched a competition for the design of our textbooks. The deadline for submission is this August. Once the final design is decided upon, these textbooks and curricula will be implemented in primary and secondary schools across the country over the next three years. Q: How does this textbook competition work? The competition is open not only to Libyans, but also to other Arab citizens. We specified the guidelines for the contents, size and illustrations of these textbooks and announced the competition through the media. Winning contestants will be receive a prize of $20,000 dinars for a primary school student book, teachers book and activity book, or $25,000 dinars for a secondary school student book, teachers book and activity book. Q: Why did you decide to develop textbooks through this competition rather than through contracting experts? Textbooks are of great social importance and this method gives a space for anyone with creativity and vision to work towards creating a textbook. Additionally, using this method, we have more choice over which textbook we eventually publish. Rather than only having a few options to choose from, we can look at a huge range of very different designs. Q: What has been your experience of working with UNDP Libya in the sphere of education? I have been very satisfied with our experience of co-operation. We have now been working together for many years. In 1999 we started the Specialised Schools project and since then we have also collaborated on vocational training, so that amounts to ten years of successful partnership.