An estimated 3,000 Saudi school principals will be sent to Singapore to be trained in educational management and leadership, according to an official at the King Abdullah Bin Abdul Aziz Public Education Development Project (Tatweer).
Abdul Latif Al-Harkan, vice president of professional development at Tatweer, said the program seeks to apprenticeship educational leaders with the highest standards of professional skills and improve their performance. The program also will help principals boost their effectiveness as leaders, equip them with the necessary expertise and skills to enable them of handling the local and international changes in the educational process.
The move comes in line with the launch of a training program by Tatweer in collaboration with the Singapore Institute of Education to qualify 40 male and female of the educational leadership elite.
Al-Harkan said the institute is one of the best of its kind at the international level for the rehabilitation and qualification of the educational leaderships. “Singapore is one of the top three countries in the world in public education,” he added.
He noted that the Singaporean side agreed to receive outstanding principals for a two-week training course.
“They will be familiarized with the educational system and the most important projects in the country prior to their training.”
The training program will focus on capacity building of principals on the educational skills needed in the 21st century.
“Capacity-building will involve enhancing the general competences and education and leadership capabilities as well,” said Al-Harkan.
The ultimate goal, he said, is the professional development of the school principals so that they qualify to the roles they will assume.
“By this training program we aim to prepare them for the roles they will carry out in order to boost the quality of the education process outputs, and improve performance in schools to reach a knowledge-based economy,” he said.
The program also seeks to enable school principals of measuring and developing the performance of teachers, extend support to them so that they can manage and administrate the quality of the school resources and outputs as best as they could and with the highest quality.
“Building and developing the procedural processes at school, as well as managing the changes that continually affect the educational environment are elements that the program seeks to instill in the trainees,” he said.
3,000 school principals to get training in Singapore
