A Multilingual Curriculum is the Foundation for Education for the Democratic Nation
With the aim of following the work and efforts of the Curriculum Institute and defining the work of the institute, we made a visit to the Institute's commissions. Consequently, we collected information about the preparation of books, from the initial phases to their arrival at the printing house.
We wanted to discuss the work with the diverse commissions of the institute. With this in mind, we started by heading to the Arabic Language commission. The members of the commission responded to each of our questions optimistically. A teacher by the name of Ibrahim Al-Abid talked about the characteristics and endeavors of his work. He continued, "In the beginning we started with elementary school books. We received the notes that the schools which prepared the edits for the elementary school books. We analyzed these notes. In the same way, we began editing the middle school books." A teacher from the same commission named Ayesha Neami discussed her observations on the subject, saying, "In the preparation of original books, we took exampled from surrounding countries. We paid attention to the contents in terms of ethics and society. After the book took on its final shape in our commission, it was sent to the photoshop commission.
After the book is configured by the preparation committee, it is brought to the photoshop committee by a member of the preparation committee in order to place photos and create the cover. With this, we went to the photoshop commission. Teacher Muhammed Al-Ahmed talked about his work and said, "I work on editing the photos in the books, and make the book covers."
Wanting to follow the phases of the book creation, after the book goes to photoshop it returns to the preparation commission, where it is edited again according to the necessary changes and then send to the review commission. With this, we went to the review commission. Teacher Rustem Ahmi explained the work of the committee and said, "After every commission is finished with their books, these books come to us. As the review committee, when we receive the books we write our comments about the books and return it to the original commission once more. In general, we review the contents of the books. The contents must be according to the students' level and must be far from authoritarian, racist, or fundamentalist mentalities. The pictures must match the content and include all peoples and faiths in the environment of the democratic nation.
Teacher Deham Al-Omeri gave his opinion on some of the required characteristics:
- They must be according to the different levels of the students.
- They must be appropriate according to grade level.
- They must be distanced from politics.
- They must strengthen the students.
When we visited the commissions this time, our next stop was the editing commission. Teacher Firyal Suleiman talked about the work and efforts of the committee and said, "After the books arrive to us from the photoshop commission, we edit the books as a commission, if there are grammar error then we make notes and send it to the commission. We encounter a lot of difficulty with constructing concepts, because we have very few sources to consult. When this situation arises, we consult with each other and check the dictionary. If the word we want is not in the dictionary or other sources, we invent it anew." Teacher Dilyar Hoshi talked about the work of the commission and explained, "We finished the elementary books and now we are working on the middle school books. For concepts too, when there is a word that doesn't exist in the Kurmanji dialect, we put it in Sorani, but when there is no word in the other dialects, we make up a word."
After learning the work of the editing commission, we headed to the English Language commission, where teacher Armanj Bawer of the English committee talked about the commission's work and said, "English starts from fifth grade; the elementary and middle school books are finished and now we are working on the 11th grade book. We create the contents, photos and subject matter in the books, and then give them to the review committee. The contents of the book are very rich; we included many subjects in order to hold the students' attention.
The Curriculum Institute works on preparing books for Kurds, Arabs, and Assyrians according to the paradigm of the democratic nation and its principles. We followed the work and efforts of the Curriculum Institute and the organization on which they work. In this way our visit finished.
