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Kuwait along with many countries adopted digital teaching in shadow of outbreak of the novel coronavirus and took other extraordinary measures to cope with the germ in 2020.
Following is record of the Kuwaiti education authorities’ tasks in light of pandemic outbreak in 2020:
Education and Scientific Research Feb 26: The Ministry of Education suspended studying at public and private schools and universities in Kuwait as a measure to counter the spread of coronavirus.
March 19: The Ministry of Education said studying for the twelfth grade will resume on August eighth and the rest of the grades on October fourth.
March 19: The Ministry of Education declared that universities would resume operations on August ninth.
March 30: The Ministry of Education approved a proposal to graduate final-year medical students to help the efforts to counter the spread of COVID-19.
May 3: Kuwait Foundation for Advancement of Sciences declared arrival of breathing apparatuses and protective gear from China.
July 16: Minister of Education and Higher Education Dr. Saud Al-Harbi declared concluding the scholastic year (2019-2020) and delaying unstudied chapters of the curriculum to 2020-2021.
Aug 25: Minister of Education and Higher Education Dr. Saud Al-Harbi decided that studies would be online in the first semester of the scholastic year (2020-2021)
Sept 23: Kuwait Institute for Scientific Research (KISR) declared earning a patent from the US Patent and Trademark Office for its invention that measures dust impact on solar cells.
Oct 3: The Ministry of Higher Education declared acceptance of 2,848 students in scholarships’ plan for the new academic year (2020-2021).
Oct 4: The Ministry of Education launched the 2020-2021 scholastic year virtually for all levels.
Oct 10: General Secretariat of Private Universities declared acceptance of 6,045 students in scholarships’ scheme for 2020-2021.
Oct 28: The Ministry of Education declared Alyaa Al-Ajmi from Umm Al-Haiman School for Girls won the top award of the “Arabic Reading Challenge” competition (2019-2020) in its fifth edition. It was the largest Arabic language competition organized by the Deputy UAE President, Prime Minister and Dubai Governor Sheikh Mohammad bin Rashed Al-Maktoum, intended to encourage reading Arabic.
Oct 29: Kuwait University declared acceptance of Kuwaiti students and children of Kuwaiti mothers for the academic year 2020-2021 at a rate of 7,566 male and female students for the first semester, 480 students for the second semester, with an increase of 2,345 students as compared to the enrolled in the past year.
Nov 24: The Ministry of Education declared that Kuwait won four prizes of Hamdan bin Rashed Al-Maktoum competition for distinguished teaching, in its 22nd session.
Nov 29: The Ministry of Education declared that 450,000 and 73,000 teachers would use the application Office 365 for virtual learning.
Nov 30: Kuwait Foundation for Advancement of Sciences published an Arabic scientific encyclopedia about the moon.
Dec 2: Minister of Education and Higher Education Dr. Saud Al-Harbi said in a ministerial event that his ministry prepared 500 sites and connected 250 schools via fiber optics to boost online services for the ministry. Dec 2: Minister of Education and Higher Education Dr. Saud Al-Harbi said in a ministerial event that the new school year required 1,243-recorded classes and the activation of 457,222 students, 73,721 teachers, 29,902 schools administrators’ online accounts. Statistics had shown there were over 316,000 active students’ accounts and over seven million virtual classes viewed for 292,362 hours by pupils. The daily average of messages in online classes had reached 844,904.
Dec 5: The Public Authority for Applied Education and Training (PAAET) accepted 15,323 students during the 2020-21 semester.
Dec 7: Kuwait Scientific Center’s Falcon-9 rocket was launched from the Kennedy Space Center in the United States, carrying with it an experiment designed by Kuwaiti students to be delivered to the astronauts on International Space Station (ISS).
Dec 13: The Ministry of Higher Education allowed the completion of the 2020-21 semester for scholarship students outside of Kuwait according to regulations set up by their universities abroad.
Source-KUNA