NNA - Culture Minister of Jordan, Lana Mamkegh representing Queen Rania Al Abdullah inaugurated on Friday the Annual Arab Forum for Educational Development 2013 held by the Arab Thought Foundation through the project "Arabic 21" in Amman, with the support of King Abdul Aziz City for Science and Technology, in cooperation with the Academy of Queen Rania for teachers' training, attended by the Lebanese Minister of Education and Higher Learning, Hassan Diab.



Minister Diab who was the only Arab Minister attending the forum in person and who has participated in all the work and discussion sessions, assured in his word that the Arabic language was a key issue that required Arab cooperation to improve it and modernize it so that it remains up-to-date.



The Minister announced that the plan to promote education approved by the Lebanese Cabinet in 1994 stipulated the need to make the Arabic our mother language, and a means of continuing historical, social, cultural and scientific communication.



"Accordingly, we issued new curricula and began writing school books and developing related methods. We also placed in this context so many programs to train teachers, and organize a number of meetings, workshops and scientific demonstrations to support the Arabic language and promote its use in various fields," Diab explained.



However, he deplored the situation of this language which is in perpetual decline in the daily life of Lebanon, the media, the politics, the economy and the business fields.



He explained that the Lebanese dialect and the language used in social networks was gaining ground, leaving a negative impact on learning the language.



"To strengthen the Arabic language in Lebanon, we should revise school curriculum and the distribution of courses," he added.



Diab finally called to implement a joint project sponsored by the Association of Arab Thought, and to establish objectives for the teaching of Arabic language and to establish a single reference to the learning the language.



==========D.K.