The Islamic World Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (ICESCO) held a meeting of experts in Arabic language, themed “Building Youth Capacities in Teaching Arabic for Non-Arabic Speakers” with the participation of a host of experts and education officers in presence and via videoconferencing from the Kingdom of Morocco, Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan, French Republic, Republic of Türkiye, Republic of Chad, Federal Republic of Nigeria, Malaysia, Republic of Kazakhstan, Russian Federation, Socialist Republic of Vietnam, Republic of Guinea and the Republic of Benin.

In his address at the meeting, held on Thursday, 26 October 2023, at Mishkat Arabic Hall, at the Organisation’s headquarters, Mr. Adel Bouraoui, Advisor to ICESCO Director-General for External Centres and Academic Chairs on Arabic Language, stated that this meeting is part of celebrating ICESCO Year of Youth, and mentioned that the 2023-2024 edition of Mishkat programme will aim to build youth capacities in teaching Arabic for Non-Arabic speakers. He further announced that the ICESCO-Hamdan bin Rashid Platform, “Mishkat”, plans to launch an upcoming program called “Future Experts” to prepare youth from ICESCO Member States, especially those with Arabic as a foreign language, to take on leadership roles in pedagogical training of teachers of Arabic for non-Arabic speakers.

The participating experts touched on a variety of topics, including “Building Scientific and Pedagogical Skillset for Young Teachers”, “Harmonizing Training Programmes with Youth Trainers’ Needs”, “Cross-generational Teachers’ Communication for the Transfer of Expertise and Renewal of Working Methods”, stressing that the preparation of youth to take on leadership roles in teaching Arabic for non-Arabic speakers will catalyse their innovation and bring about innovation and development to the field.

At the end of the meeting, the present experts received certificates of participation in the 2022-2023 first edition of Mishkat Arabic Language programme.