[ecr]

Addressing a press conference after kicking off the 2024-2025 school year at the Salah-Ould Aoudia primary school in the commune of Ben Aknoun (Algiers), the minister said that the sector was ready to welcome nearly 12 million students nationwide, assuring that the State had taken “all necessary measures to rehabilitate the schools affected by bad weather, notably in the province of Bechar.”

Belaabed referred to “the main innovations of this school year, notably the revision of curriculums launched under the instructions of the President of the Republic, Abdelmadjid Tebboune, as well as the work of the National Curriculum Council.”    

He pointed out that this revision “mainly concerns the first cycle of primary education (first and second years),” explaining that “the teaching of scientific and civic education has been postponed to other stages of this cycle, but has not been cancelled.”

He also reported on “the sector's restructuring of subjects and timetables for the first and second years of the primary education cycle, as part of the move to lighten the curriculum in favor of cultural, sporting and artistic activities, to develop pupils' aptitudes in these disciplines.”

These measures aim to inculcate fundamental knowledge in pupils, particularly in language and mathematics, as well as manual, physical and technical skills, while reinforcing the teaching of religious and moral values.

In this respect, the minister recalled that “the hourly volume of sports and artistic activities in the first cycle of primary education will be increased from 7 to 20%, i.e., two hours of sports education and one and a half hours of artistic education per week, while mathematics will benefit from an additional 30 minutes per week.”[/ecr]