'File 19/248 I (C 78) Education at Bahrain' [‎65r] (146/494)

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The sixth cause of inefficiency is the lack, by all the students, in all
the schools, of a Sound Grounding, or Educational Foundation.
It has long been realised in the European countries that the babies'
classes of any school are of far greater importance than the top classes, and
that only the very best teachers are capable of properly teaching infants. It
has long been realised that unless a child has been given a sound founda
tion durnig the first few years of his school life, all future efforts of educate
him properly will prove unavailing.
It is during the first two or three years of his school life that a student
is made or marred, for it is then, and only then, that he is likely to learn the
educational virtues of neatness, order, method, logical thought, effort, con
centration, and the like. These things cannot be taught later on ; and unless
a student possesses this foundation, for his later teachers to build upon^ his
case is hopeless. For this reason the European educational systems lavish
the utmost care upon the education of the Infants, considering them to be
of far greater importance than any other students.
In the East the prevailing practice is exactly the opposite. Here we
always find the best teachers being given to the highestr classes, and the
young, inexperienced, poorly-qualified teachers being considered quite good
enough for the babies. No greater mistake in education could possibly be
made, and the making of this mistake is one of the chief reasons why the
educational standard of the Arab countries is so low, when compared with
that of the countries of Europe.
The present system in Bahrain is to herd together in small rooms, for
hours on end, large numbers of infants, under the care of young and inex
perienced teachers, and then to be surprised, later on, to find that the
educational standard in Bahrain is low. These little boys are given no
books from which to study, nor are they provided with any kind of manual
occupation, so important in the early education of children. They are ex
pected to sit, hour after hour, morning and afternoon, watching each other's
efforts with a piece of chalk on a blackboard which only a few of them can
see. At other times they spend long hours copying from printed books
words or sentences of which they do not even know the meanings. The
amount of education imparted by these methods is practically nil—in fact
this is not education at all, and such a curriculum can only succeed in
implanting in a child's mind a deep hatred of school and study, and all
connected with it.
Infants at school need special teaching, special equipment, special
hours, much handwork, much play, and individual surroundings. These
things cannot be obtained in schools which are designed for the education
of boys up to the ages of 17 and 18. Quite apart from this, it is undesirable
that infants should frequent the same schools as youths of twice or three
times their age. And it is utterly undesirable that they should be made to
work the same number of hours.
If there is to be any real improvement in Bahrain education, that
improvement must begin at the bottom, and it cannot come from the top.
I want to press upon your Highness the urgent necessity of ordering a com
plete reversal of the present policy regarding the education of Atfal in
Bahrain. Absolutely separate schools should be built for them, as soon as
possible, at Manamah, Muharraq, and Hedd. They should be provided with