Saudi inaugurates E-Learning forum to revolutionise education

Riyadh: Saudi Arabia's Ministry of Education and the Saudi Electronic University has inaugurated the two-day Global Trends in E-Learning (GTEL) forum here on Monday. The inaugural ceremony was hosted by Burj Rafal hotel in Riyadh, Arab News reported.

The forum will be featuring more than 40 speakers, 50 companies and 20 countries with programmes both online and offline.

Saudi Education Minister Hamad Al-Sheikh said that it is important to build an e-education system for future generations that could handle the challenges in the future. The education system must provide knowledge and skills for development that are scientifically sustainable, he said.

The minister added that the revolution in the education system is one of the goals of Saudi Vision 2030. This includes improvisation in the sector, equal access to it and achieving global levels, he said.

The minister, as well as the university president Dr Lilac Al-Safadi, stressed the inevitability of evolving educational methods such as digital learning. The Saudi Electronic University, which hosts the GTEL, is the first university in the Kingdom to adopt e-learning.

The forum will train educators and institutions in advanced e-learning. The speakers will show the latest methodologies in the field and how to use them effectively.

Al Safadi said that by 2025, 85 million manual jobs would be done by artificial intelligence, and 33 per cent of employment would be transferred to remote work. The global educational technology market has exceeded 400 billion USD, including an estimated 12 billion USD of virtual reality and 6 billion USD of artificial technologies. The future education system will be non-traditional such as smart classrooms, she said.