By Zayed Sultan, (AB/IINA) :

Tivar : The International Conference on Islamic Education among Albanians: Challenges and Perspectives concluded its activities after two-day sessions in the coastal city of Tivar (Bar), in southern Montenegro, last week.

The conference gathered the most famous figures in didactics and philology from Albania, Kosovo, Macedonia, Montenegro and Presevo (Serbia), to analyze and discuss some of the major aspects of Islamic education and its situation in this area.

The conference was organized by the International Institute of Islamic Thought (IIIT) and the Albanian Institute of Islamic Thought and Civilization, within a joint project to develop the Islamic intellectual thought and education.

During the two-day conference, 25 scientific papers were presented in six sessions, where the specialists and administrators of the Islamic education, in these Albanian-speaking regions, explained the current situation of Islamic education and the challenges faced.

They also explained the future aspirations of this education, whose development is closely linked to the future of the Islamic communities in this region.

The conference was organized in the form of a round table in whch, apart from presentation of research papers, there was a great deal of discussion and debate on the ideas that were put forward for implementation.

Some of the main themes of the scientific conference focused on the issues listed below:
– Pre-university Islamic education: Challenges and objectives in view of the current circumstances.
– The traditional curriculum of Islamic higher education and contemporary cultural reality.
– The Theory of Integration of Knowledge in the curriculum of Islamic educational institutions.
– Islamic education in public schools.
– The reality of religion textbooks and their improvement with time.
– Teachers of religion: Training between tradition and contemporary developments.
– Imams: Training to be role models for communities.
– The development of Islamic thought in the Muslim educational institutions.

It is expected that conferences of this type will take place in the coming years, where major problems of culture and Islamic religion can be addressed in a professional manner.