'File 4/13 III Kuwait Education' [‎59r] (117/842)

Spirit* I anticipate an inprovament by the tine of my next
visit*
l*he ^i;»te of the school le by no means due entirely to
the present Head paster* He in the third man to hold that
post in less then three years* The Syrian %ho was there
before him «ae inexperiend^d and conceited. He made no effofct
to train his staff j«nd concentrated most of his energies on a
small roup of Hoy :eouts: chosen from his own school*
Us tad Abdul Mcfcimhas a big Job before him in that he
aims to bring the school dp to the standard of the others. The
Director will give him every support end I hope to see rppid
Improvement*
8* The Jshrah Village ;chool *
Until trained staff are sent to the village schools
little can be hoped for. here are two classes of about 15 boys
each in separate rooms taught by an ignorant old Mullah who
runa fron room to room. He himself knows very little. Exam
ination of the nuplls showed fchat wht»t few things they had
learned were meaningless strings of words to them*
After the war 9 village education must be radically
revised. ‘hat is needed ia the intelligent teaching of reading
f nd writing the • oran and a 1 Din, simple arithmetic, hygiene
and a course of general knowledge which has e strong rural
bias* included in this general knowledge will be practical
geography and a little local history.
9* The Girls* Schools *
I visited both of the girls* schools after school hours
with Dheikh Abdullah* I was very disappointed in wh*t I sew,
or rather in what I failed to see* Although it had been known
since the beginning pf the terra that I should be in Kuwait in
November and although they had given three days notice of my
inspection there were no signs of needle work, cooking, dress
making or h*nd-work except ci’kes nd paper patterns which were
obviously made Xxy the teachers for my benefit* The Head Mis
tress of the lharqpieh ichool the wife of Uetad nhimlan, le
in my opinion unsatisfactory. Hhe thinks fur more of her