18 January 2010

Fakhri in London to promote cooperation with Britain

Source: Tripoli Post, 17 January 2010

A Libyan delegation, including Dr Abdul Kabir Fakhri, Secretary of the GPC for Education and Scientific Research, is holding a series of meetings during a visit to the UK including with Professor Keith Burnett, Vice-Chancellor of the University of Sheffield.

As part of improving bi-lateral relations between Libya and Britain, the Secretary of the GPC for Education and Scientific Research Dr Abdul Kabir Fakhri accompanied by a delegation from various Libyan universities is on a five-day visit to Britain.

A press release by the British Council in Tripoli said Mr. Fakhri was to meet with Lord Mandelson, Secretary of State for Business, Innovation & Skills, the meeting will include a Joint Statement on Education between the government of the United Kingdom and the Great Jamahiriya; Gerard Lemos, CMG Chair of the British Council, which will include the signing of the Memorandum of Understanding for the 'Connecting Classrooms' large scale project, by which Libyan and British primary and secondary students and schools in both countries will work together on projects related to the environment, science, math's and English and Arabic languages; and Professor David J Halton, Chair of the Wales International Consortium and Professor Philip Gummett Chief Executive of the Higher Education Council for Wales who will sign an MOU with the Secretary of Education aiming at developing educational and research links between Welsh and Libyan universities.

The Libyan delegation was due to hold meetings with Professor Steve Smith, President of ''Universities UK'', also the Vice-Chancellor of the University of Exeter; the Director Generals of the Quality Assurance Agency for Higher Education and the Qualifications and Curriculum Agency for schools; Professor Keith Burnett, the Vice Chancellor of the University of Sheffield, to include a signing of a Memorandum of Understanding with the President of Al Fateh University for joint research, with masters and PhD studies delivered in Libya; Neil McIntosh, the Chief Executive of The Centre for British Teachers (CfBT), Education Trust, which will include the signing of a Memorandum of Understanding on teacher training, and World-Class school leadership and schools inspection training programs and others.

According to a press release by the British Council, the General peoples Committee for Education and the British Council have established 10 centres in Libyan universities, staffed and run by Libyan personnel, trained to international standards for English Language Teaching.

The project is now in its 4th year of operation and employs 28 UK teacher trainers and training and academic managers around the country working alongside 70 Libyan teaching assistants, themselves post-graduate students.

The main aim of the project is the development of the Libyan Teacher Assistants, graduates from the universities who will specialize as English language teachers and administrative support to run the Language Centers in the universities for the long term.

The GPC for Education aims for 2009 - 2011 is to ensure that every post-graduate student at every university has a higher standard of English in the future, and a Ministerial decree in late 2007 now requires all post graduate students to certify that they have Central European Framework level A2 in English, the release said.

Libya launched the Connecting Classrooms project in June 2009. The project has 6 Libyan schools as part of the project this year partnered with schools in Wales, with activity including environmental modules within the school curriculum.

The next step will expand the project to another 25 schools nationwide and add 25 further in 2011, supported by the rollout of Connecting Classrooms online going nationwide in Libya from 2012 onwards. There are close to 3,500 Libyan students in full-time undergraduate and postgraduate study in the UK are at any one time, the largest single group of overseas students in the UK from the Arab world.

The British Council and the GPC for Education are working on establishing institutional links between British and Libyan universities to support the development of Libyan universities and enhance the international engagement of UK universities with specific projects through joint masters and PhD and research programs.

According to a press release by the British Council office in Tripoli, the aim being that in 5 years every single university in Libya has a department to department link with a British University.