Page 108 - Bahrain Gov Annual Reports (III)_Neat

32
Clubi. There arc five clubs for Arabs in Manama and Muharraq. Their activities are not
very wide-spread. Each has a meeting room crowded with small tables and chairs where members
gather to gossip over tea and cigarettes. In some cases there is a library of sorts and in all a Radio
and few indoor games. None could be called a centre of cultural or intellectual development (although
some of them do make this claim). Their committee and members are sadly lacking in initiative and
drive.

In two cases, however, evening classes are held in Arabic. Arithmetic and English. We try
as far as possible to encourage this by the provision of books and occasionally paying visits to the
classes and giving lessons there.

Recently one club in Muharraq entertained a party of R.A.F. men and issued a standing invita­
tion to any who wish to drop in, an invitation which has been readily accepted by a few.

The British Council sends magazines regularly to these clubs, most of them in English but a
few in Arabic also.

School Plays. As a result of the financial success of the Secondary School play in 1361
each school and club determined to outdo the others by the production of a super-spectacular show.
This resulted in a veritable festival when for a period of two months the Public were invited
to subscribe, and then to attend a rather dreary play once a week. Certainly large sums of money
were collected which were, it was claimed, to be used for such creditable purposes as building club
libraries or for clothing the poor. The public were, in the end, a little Surfeited and not a little wearied
by the seemingly endless stream of " Blank Tickets."
The most disturbing aspect of the matter was that the activities of the staff and the boys of
the schools were directed solely towards the collection of money. No attempt was made to derive
any educational experience from the preparation and production. Carpenters and tailors were hired :
none of the properties were made by the boys themselves. The expenses were therefore enormous.
For these reasons the sale of tickets for school functions has now been prohibited.
The Secondary School play produced Rs. 3,400 which was allocated to the Public Library.
The proceeds of the Primary School plays—Rs. 2,000 were used to provide clothing for all village
schoolboys.
Games. A very successful inter-school sports meeting was held on the Fort ground on 15th
R/Thani (22nd April 1943). His Highness, accompanied by Shaikhs Abdulla and Mohamed bin Isa,
attended and gave away the prizes. The standard of performance was surprisingly high considering
that so much time was expended in practising for the ten minutes drill display, that preceded the
field events, and in debating who should carry the flag in the march past, that there was no time to
train for the events.

Football matches are now held more regularly and fewer arc scratched by teams anticipating a
beating; but the attitude towards defeat remains unaltered. When asked the result of a match
in which his team was beaten 4—2 a boy will reply, " We scored two goals."

Recruitment by the Oil Company. In the past the management of the Bahrain
Petroleum Company rarely recruited from the upper forms of the Government Schools finding that
untrained boys with no education make better progress than those with a little schooling who think
that they already know all that there is to learn. The requirements on the clerical side being a working
knowledge of English, efficiency in the four rules of Arithmetic and a receptive mind. Improved
methods of teaching are now having their effect so that a fourth year Primary School boy is now
more trainable than a Secondary School boy of a few years ago.
It is hoped, in the not too far distant future, to work out a practical scheme for the encourage­
ment of the recruitment of Bahrain Schoolboys both on the clerical and technical sides.