Thirty-Seven students, out of an original total of 76, will soon be sitting for their final examinations leading to the award of a Diploma in Functional Arabic. This diploma is a two-year part-time day course which launched for the first time two years ago by the Department of Arabic and Near Eastern Studies with the help of the Minister of Education, Dr Louis Galea.
The aim of this diploma is to provide students with the necessary basic proficiency which they need in their contact with Malta's North African and Near Eastern Arabic-speaking neighbours. This diploma course proved to be a success with the students, and those who do well in it will be accepted in the second year of the BA Honours course in Arabic.
Besides the diploma, the Department of Arabic and Near Eastern Studies also offers BA and BA Honours courses in two closely related areas: Arabic and Near Eastern Studies. Both cultural and language courses are offered in each area, with a focus on languages. The language courses in these degree programmes are shared mainly between Arabic and Hebrew: the former largely consists in Modern Standard Arabic, whereas the latter is mainly made up of Classical Hebrew with some Phoenician-Punic.