Regional seminar held on ‘Knowledge and Language Development in the 21st Century’

|     Syazwani Hj Rosli     |

A TWO-DAY regional seminar on “Knowledge and Language Development in the 21st Century”, organised by the Language and Knowledge Development Centre of Universiti Islam Sultan Sharif Ali (UNISSA), came to an end yesterday.

At the end of the presentation session, several resolutions were formulated through the two-day seminar, which is hoped to contribute to the development of knowledge and language and play a role in building skills in facing challenges.

Some of the summaries that were formulated from the seminar were to build Brunei Darussalam as an exemplary country in preserving Mazhab Ahli Sunnah Wal-Jama’ah elements of thought and disseminate it to other Muslim countries which follow the Mazhab.

The seminar was expected to highlight the importance of keeping a balance between the knowledge of the ‘Duniawi and Ukhrawi’ in generating individuals who are capable of enduring the challenges of the 21st century.

Furthermore, the seminar also emphasised on the establishment of an international centre that gives importance to Arabic studies for non-Arabic speakers, which will feature a centre for references for speakers and students worldwide. It is also believed that mass media could also help in facilitating referencing and sharing knowledge with students from other Islamic universities.

At the same time, it was also urged that workshops or training classes should be held on how to apply modern information technologies and other social media to aid the learning of Arabic Language and the dissemination of useful knowledge.

Simultaneously, institutions are advised to provide ‘turath’ books chosen in the field of Syariah, Fiqh, Islamic History as well as language and literature, as an aid to enrich and expand the students’ language, grammar, usage and sentence structure required in their writing and speech.

Teachers are also advised to be more actively involved with their educational institutions to better care and benefit from the co-curriculum activities in assisting and guiding the language proficiency of their students.

Finally, more regional and international seminars are expected to be conducted in the future.

These seminars will emphasise on the aspects of learning and restructuring the language, in order to form continuous skills among the students, especially in Southeast Asia.