Category: Front Page

ICESCO’s Educational Center in Malaysia, in cooperation with the Islamic Education Division at the Malaysian Ministry of Education and the International Islamic University in Selangor, held on October 5 and 6, a training session in Johor Bahru, Malaysia, on “electronic performance assessment tools of Arabic language teachers.”

The training session is the first face-to-face activity since the COVID-19 outbreak last March. It benefits 57 teachers from various public schools in Peninsular Malaysia.

The event aims to help the participants use educational performance measurement software of the teachers of Arabic language for non-Arabic speakers. Dr. Muhammad Sabri Shahr, Associate Professor at the International Islamic University Malaysia, supervised the training. ��^��2

The world celebrates today, October 5, the World Teachers’ Day. In observance of this special annual occasion, celebrated this year under the theme, “Teachers: Leading in Crisis, Reimagining the Future,” the Islamic World Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization (ICESCO) reaffirms that education that endorses creativity and leadership and foresees changes, especially relating to AI, is the foundation of comprehensive human development.

The Organization stressed that facing challenges and crises, making history, and shaping the future are impactful contributions that can only be achieved through strong, advanced education systems where teachers are accorded due importance. Professionally trained and motivated teachers are more likely to better assume their key role in shaping the school of tomorrow.

Against this backdrop, ICESCO underlines the need to capitalize on the cumulative experiences and the lessons learned throughout the COVID-19 pandemic. The Organization added that this pandemic brought about a plethora of challenges and issues that tested the resilience of the education systems in most countries as they attempted to find an alternative learning environment to replace face-to-face classes.

The pandemic took by storm the education systems and swiftly ushered them into a new phase. It also compelled education officials to embark on new experiences and craft digital educational initiatives. The entirety of the educational corps had to navigate an uncertain situation without proper equipment including meticulous planning, adequate technological and digital infrastructure, and teachers qualified to work on virtual platforms.

Since the digital school and distance education have become the core of our new reality and the course of our daily life in the post-Covid-19 world, with its new milestones, requires all countries and peoples of the world be more prepared to achieve the necessary shift from the traditional school to the digital school of the future. The new school promises broader prospects and better results and outputs to achieve the various aims of the Development Goal 4 (SDG 4) of the UN 2030 Agenda: “Ensure inclusive and equitable quality education and promote lifelong learning opportunities for all.”

The goal demands accelerated structural reform of educational plans, teacher training institutions, educational curricula and programs, and working mechanisms. The next stage will witness stronger presence of AI and its products.

Amid the transformations witnessed in the education sector, ICESCO calls for intensifying efforts and mobilizing the necessary resources to prevent distance education from turning divisive which increases disparities between learners in the Islamic world.

Nearly 20% of school-age children are out of school, and equality between male and female students in both urban and rural settings remains much to be desired. The Organization also calls on parents to back the efforts of teachers and ensure more involvement in the educational process and to provide a home environment incubating the values of self-learning, sustainable education, creativity, and leadership. The measures benefit children, especially in the early stages of education.

ICESCO recommends developing teacher training programs in the Islamic world countries, incorporating digital and technological training in those programs, reforming teacher training institutions, and learning from the experiences of successful countries in the field of teacher training.

The Organization also recommends focusing in training programs on societal issues to enhance teachers’ roles in entrenching the values of tolerance, openness and peaceful coexistence, dialogue, respect for the Other, and the promotion of the principles of middle stance, moderation, understanding and rapprochement between peoples.

ICESCO affirms that the teacher will remain a fundamental pillar in the educational process, and modern educational applications will not reduce his value and position in society, regardless of circumstances.

A delegation of the Islamic World Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization (ICESCO) held a working meeting with the officials of Mohammedan League of Scholars in Morocco, to follow up on the implementation of the cooperation agreement for 2020-2022. ICESCO and the League signed the agreement in March 2020.

ICESCO’s Dr. Abdelilah Benarafa, Cultural Advisor to the Director-General, and Ambassador Khaled Fathalrahman, Head of the Department of Dialogue and Cultural Diversity, attended the meeting.

Dr. Abdessamad Ghazi and Dr. Mohammed Al-Mountar, Deputy Secretaries-General were the attendees representing the League.

After reviewing and assessing achievements, the two parties agreed to move forward with the Executive Plan related to the Capacity Building Kit. The kit included the development of a guide for immunization and influencers’ capacity-building to counter the discourse of extremism, apostasy, and terrorism through educational, cultural, and value-based approaches. Training sessions were also part of the approaches.

 The first volume of the Encyclopedia of the Deconstruction of the Discourse of Extremism is expected to be published in early 2021.

The Islamic World Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization (ICESCO) celebrates today, September 30, the International Translation Day.
The United Nations (UN) decided to observe this day by virtue of its Resolution No. 28871, dated 24 May 2017, in response to the call of the International Federation of Translators (FIT), which has been observing this day since September 30, 1991. This day is associated with the annual celebration of St. Jerome, who is considered the patron saint of translators and the first one to translate the Bible from Hebrew into Latin.

In light of the COVID-19 pandemic, which took by storm many vital sectors in the world, ICESCO joins the FIT to show its support for translators across the globe. The Organization appreciates their work throughout the pandemic and promotes their ability to bring nations and cultures together amid these difficult times, which imposed on people an unprecedented isolation. The federation chose “Finding the words for a world in crisis” as a theme for this year’s celebration.

Thanks to the new vision of H.E. Dr. Salim M. AlMalik, ICESCO Director-General (DG), the Organization set an example in mitigating the impact of the pandemic on the sector of translation at the internal level.

ICESCO made the prompt shift from face-to-face interpretation during conferences to videoconferencing technology to provide distance interpretation. It also put forward proposals for developing the translation option on Zoom. By adopting the new measures, ICESCO ensured the success of all its conferences and forums since the start of outbreak.

The International Translation Day is an opportunity to promote the pivotal role of this profession and highlight its growing importance in the context of globalization. It is also an opportunity to remind employers of the outstanding and diligent work translators perform, often away from the spotlight to facilitate communication between different nations and cultures.

Since the dawn of time, translation has played a civilizational, cultural, and scientific role and has always been the phenomenon preceding and following every civilizational achievement. With more than 6,000 languages across the world and the growing communication and rapprochement thanks to modern means of communication and transportation, there is a compelling need for translation in order to consolidate communication and cooperation and promote peace and security among the countries of the world.

Like many other international organizations, ICESCO, has adopted since its establishment translation as a key tool to convey its educational, scientific, and cultural message in Arabic, English, and French. The Organization has translated thousands of documents, studies, and research works in all its fields of competence.

ICESCO’s recent vision aims to develop the Organization’s programs and projects to address the changing needs of its Member States and to upgrade its working mechanisms and tools to keep up with the technological and digital advances. ICESCO’s new General Directorate therefore launched a comprehensive development operation with the aim of digitizing all its activities and benefiting from artificial intelligence to improve the performance of its service departments.

ICESCO Translation Center largely benefited from this operation as it obtained access to the latest version of Trados. The software will enable the center’s employees to benefit from AI applications and CAT tools.

In celebration of this day, Dr. AlMalik expressed his appreciation for the role of translation and the work of translators across the globe to promote civilizational dialogue and preserve cultural and linguistic diversity in the world.

The DG also expressed his appreciation for the efforts of ICESCO’s translators to spread the Organization’s civilizational mission, reaffirming his sustained commitment to develop the technological, human, and financial resources of the Translation Center to ensure its good performance.