Authorities aim to promote early language development and readiness for primary education through innovative competition.

A new oral fluency competition is set to kick off across all kindergartens in the country, Qatar’s education ministry announced.

The competition, scheduled to take place from May 1 to 9, aims to improve language skills in children nationwide, as per the Ministry of Education and Higher Education’s statement.

By providing learners with the essential skills and competencies they need to move to the next stage of their education, authorities aim to ensure that students are achieving at a level commensurate with their abilities.

The contest also serves as a great opportunity for young learners to showcase talents for the children, as well as the ability to gain valuable experience in expressing themselves fluently.

Comprised of five phases, the contest provides children with the necessary skills and competencies to transition to the next educational stages. These skills are also taught through the advanced curricula provided by the MoEHE, in addition to classroom and extracurricular activities.

Deputy Principal of the Abi Hanifa Model Kindergarten, Amna Youssef Al Sayed, expressed her happiness at the participation of children in the competition, emphasising that the required skills for participation are available to all children in kindergartens.

Al Sayed further added that the stories included in the curricula enrich children linguistically and prepare them to move to the first grade with high linguistic readiness.

What to expect and why

As kindergartens do not measure grades but rather the skills that must be available to all students before they move to the primary stage, all children in kindergartens can participate in the contest, she added.

Aisha Al Mohannadi, an educational supervisor at the MoEHE’s Early Education Department, highlighted that the contest is an initiative that aims to enhance the language skills of kindergarteners.

Its objective is to encourage children to read, form words, express themselves, and articulate pictures in order to speak fluently. This move aligns with the MoEHE’s strategy to develop language skills in the early childhood stage.

Iman Al Jabri, a supervisor at the MoEHE’s Early Education Department, revealed that the contest started as an internal competition in government kindergartens and was then expanded across all Qatar’s government kindergartens to measure children’s language achievement.

The initiative is expected to benefit all participants in terms of their linguistic readiness and pave the way for a smooth transition to the next educational stage.

Children who develop strong language skills early on are more likely to succeed academically and professionally in the future, research has confirmed