Education

Dubai, December 6, 2016 - Arabs read 35 hours per year on average, unlike previous claims stating that they only read six mins a year, inning accordance with the outcomes of the Arab Reading Index, which were announced on the 2nd day of the Knowledge Summit 2016, organised by the Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum Foundation(MBRF) on December 5-7, 2016, at the Grand Hyatt Dubai hotel.

Bearing the theme "Knowledge ... Present and Future", the three-day Summit is held under the patronage of H.H. Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum, Vice President and Prime Minister of the UAE and Ruler of Dubai, in addition to under the regulations of H.H. Sheikh Ahmed bin Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum, Chairman of MBRF. The Summit combines famous ministers, executives, and intellectuals to review means to enhance the production and dissemination of knowledge.

The Arab Reading Index is the first of its kind in the region; it is a scientific and standardised device that tracks reading patterns in the Arab World, all in a bid to assign quantifiable numerical data to the procedure of cultural growth in the region.

His Excellency Jamal bin Huwaireb, Managing Director of MBRF, stated: "We had constantly listened to these data being pointed out, asserting that Arabs only read 6 minutes usually each year which, statistically, it takes 80 Arabs to check out one book each year. We were extremely skeptical and sought to figure out the source of these stats just to discover that there was basically no sound evidence to support them. This is why we released the Arab Reading Index, and laid out to find the accurate information ourselves-- and from all Arab nations."

The survey carried out to put the Index with each other canvassed 148,000 individuals across all 22 Arab-League nations. "The example is massive," assures Dr. Hany Torky, Chief Technical Advisor of the United Nations Growth Program (UNDP); "usually, an example would be 1,000 participants per nation, which means we just needed 22,000 individuals for the Index to be taken into consideration reliable. We had 148,000."

" The Index is not a statistic, it is a scientific tool with purely applied criteria," Dr. Torky explained. "We used electronic polling in order to get to sections of culture we could not have reached or else-- namely, non-students. It usually takes 2 to 3 years to establish such a sophisticated index; we did it in just one year, requiring a details demand from H.E. Jamal bin Huwaireb."

Meanwhile, Dr. Najoua Ghriss, Professor at the Higher Institute of Education and Continuous Training in Tunisia and major author of the Arab Reading Index, said: "It is very important to have numerous initiatives to enhance education in the region, but it is more important to locate methods to synergistically incorporate them. I think the Arab Knowledge Project did well in doing simply that; it created a framework to foster knowledge and sustainable development. Seeking knowledge without reading is just impossible. This is why, if we are severe in our initiatives to spread out knowledge, we need to establish tools to gauge and monitor reading. This is where the Arab Reading Index comes in; its legitimacy comes from that it was borne out of the Arab Reading Challenge."

The Arab Knowledge Index revealed that the typical variety of books read throughout all Arab nations totaled up to 16 annually-- seven of them read at school and universities, while the remaining 9 read in participants' spare time. Additionally, the average variety of Arabic books check out was 11, while the typical number of foreign-language publications was virtually six. Meanwhile, the 35 hours that respondents invested reading each year made up 15 hours in institutions or university and 20 hrs outside scholastic organizations.

The Index determined ease of access to books in each of the countries in the house, in school, and in society generally-- to puts it simply, it determined how much families, school administrations, and societies encourage and facilitate reading across the Arab World. Usually, 46% of respondents insisted that they have access to publications in the house, 52% delight in access at school, while 37% felt that culture at big urges reading.

The Arab Knowledge Index likewise analyzed the effect that individual qualities carry people's reading routines - specifically, the capacity to read (proficiency rate), intentions to read, and personal views and viewpoints. The surveys revealed that 65% of participants view reading as a requirement, and 70% of them consider it to be no less important than education.

The top five nations in regards to reading were Lebanon with a rating of 90, complied with by Egypt with 89, Morocco with 87, the UAE with 82, and Jordan with 71.

The Index furthermore revealed that the population of the 22 Arab-League countries favour digital methods of reading over standard ones, where 16 of the 35 hrs spent on reading every year were devoted to reading paper publications while 19 hours were devoted to digital. In terms of paper material, surveys showed that 28% of them were publications, 20% were books, 20% were been experts magazines, 17% were papers, and 14% were comic books. As for digital resources, 23% of read material got on social networks, another 23% on news internet sites, 21% were electronic books, 15% e-magazines, 9.3% blog sites, and 7.78% professional networks.

Talking about the inconsistency between digital and paper reading resources in the Arab world, H.E. bin Huwaireb said: "In Europe, paper is rebounding and actually going beyond digital material. There, they release by the thousands and millions, whereas in our region, we release by the hundreds. This is why Arab visitors resort to e-books and other digital resources. We must make it a top priority to print more publications and to earn them extra inexpensive to all sections of society."

The Arab Reading Index has been produced through a partnership in between the Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum Foundation(MBRF) and the Regional Bureau for Arab States of the United Nations Development Program (UNDP). More in-depth details regarding the Index and its outcomes could be located on the Knowledge4All website and mobile application, as well as the Arab Knowledge Project's social networks.

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