The Kingdom has always been keen on the idea of building a knowledge community to produce citizens with advanced levels of learning who can compete globally. A knowledge community, also known as a discourse community, can be roughly described as a knowledge hub where people exchange ideas for the benefit of society. The Kingdom's keenness to build such a community led to the launching in Riyadh of the International Forum of Education, under the patronage of Crown Prince Naif Bin Abdul Aziz, Deputy Premier and Minister of Interior. Hundreds of participants from around the world attended the forum, which was organized by the Ministry of Education. The forum discussed important points for developing programs to prepare teachers to make plans on how to provide children with better education which, hopefully will lead to building a knowledge community. The other important topics discussed at the forum were changing traditional methods of teaching, the challenges facing the educational system, the current and future state of education and the methods of building knowledge communities. The forum also discussed the main features and characteristics of knowledge communities, as described by the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO). If the Kingdom is to succeed in building a knowledge community, we will have to seriously reassess the educational process in our country. The positive ideas generated by the forum should bear fruit that we hope will be reflected in our educational system. __
