28. The National Institution lauds the efforts exerted by the Ministry of Education to enable the
physically disabled persons to enjoy all their rights, particularly by providing (12) school buses for
transporting students of this category, and they are equipped with wheelchairs and electric lifts, and
accordingly, the National Institution calls upon the Ministry concerned with transportation affairs
to speedily prepare means of public transport in line with available resources to be able to fulfil the
rights and needs of the physically disabled, particularly those who suffer from physical handicaps,
given that this is considered an obligation for the Kingdom of Bahrain due to its ratification of the
Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities to which it acceded in accordance with Law
No. (22) of 2011.
29. In order to provide support to the outstanding students of both genders, as a prelude to enrolling
in higher education, the Ministry of Education allocates more than two thousand and five hundred
scholarships annually to outstanding students without discrimination between the genders and in
accordance with unified and declared standards. Moreover, the scholarships offered by the Ministry
include two categories of students, the first is the students sent abroad, whereby the Ministry
of Education gives them financial support through payment of tuition fees and the expenses for
books, while the second category of students involves for the Ministry to provide financial grants
equivalent to the annual tuition fees of a Bahraini university.
30. The scholarships for the year (2017-2018)16 included a number of varied specializations in the fields
of engineering, history, science, Islamic Law, English Language, Law, business administration,
accounting and other specializations. The share of females from these scholarships was (240) seats,
and (328) seats for males, such in addition to allocating (937) joint seats for both genders in a number
of specializations and fields included in the scholarships program.
31. By giving due regard to the humanitarian conditions of some of the detainees at the Reform and
Rehabilitation Centers and those detained in the provisional detention centers, the Ministry of
Education has, in cooperation with the Ministry of Interior represented in the center of reform
and rehabilitation annually, and since the start of the academic years, enabled the inmates and
those detained on a precautionary basis to register and finalize the procedures of their enrolment
for study in the various educational stages within the registration mechanisms and enrolment in
effect, and the Ministry of Education sends committees to enable the inmates or detainees to sit
for examinations at their schedules times, and also shall coordinate with the universities to enable
those enrolled to sit for the examinations in accordance with the regulations in effect.
32. Moreover, the Ministry of Education in coordination with the competent departments in the Ministry
of Interior supplies the inmates with textbooks and taking the examination at the scheduled times
inside the centres and in accordance with the regulations in effect at the Ministry of Education,
whereby the inmates and prisoners are treated as External students which affords them the
opportunity to obtain a fair evaluation that is compatible with their particular circumstances. On its
part the Ministry of Education applies the External Study System to those students to protect their
interests, and the opportunity is available to those students to take the final examinations provided
16 A statement to the press made by H.E. the Minister of Education on 8 July 2017, published in Akhbar Al-Khaleej Newspaper, Issue (14352): http://akhbar-alkhaleej.com/news/article/1080310
98