Bahrain
Kuwait and Oman refuse to Recognize Degrees from Private Universities in Bahrain
Officials in Kuwait and Oman are refusing to recognize the credentials of those with degrees from a number of private universities in Bahrain, which in turn has prompted Bahraini officials to launch an evaluation of all private universities licensed in the country. According to local media reports, some private universities are no more then storefronts selling degrees.
– Khaleej Times [1]
November 9, 2007
Iraq
Baghdad University Reopens
One month into the new academic year and education at the University of Baghdad [2] is reported to be as near to normal as it has been for years with student numbers — both Shiite and Sunni — back to near capacity, vacant lecturing posts being filled and the kind of sectarian violence in Baghdad which virtually wrote off last year’s academic year dipping significantly. Educators interviewed by Agence France Presse are hopeful that 2007-2008 will restore the university’s reputation for excellence that it has enjoyed since it was established 50 years ago.
US commanders attribute the fall in bombings, shootings and death squad murders to a “surge” of an extra 28,500 American troops on the streets of Baghdad and its surrounding violent belts since June. The more cynical say the city of four million people has simply been polarized into a maze of Shiite and Sunni enclaves off limits to anyone from a rival sect and that the “ethnic cleansing” of neighborhoods is more or less complete.
According to university media director Dr Intisar al-Suaidi, only 50 percent of registered students on average turned up for lectures last year. This year the figure is estimated at 90 percent. No enrollment figures are available for this year or last year; however, there were 57,500 students and 5,300 lecturers at Baghdad University in 2005 — before the violence spun out of control. Dr Intisar was able to offer statistics on faculty murders, stating that 160 professors have been killed by insurgents since the US invasion in 2003. And that already this term another two have been shot dead.
– AFP [3]
November 12, 2007
Education Spending Surpasses Military Spending
For the first time in their history, the countries of the Arabian Gulf are budgeting more for education than they are for arms. The oil-rich nations of Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates are alone planning to spend more than US$22 billion on education projects designed to catapult knowledge dissemination in the region into the 21st century.
Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman and Qatar, the other countries that make up the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC), are also spending sizeable sums on education. Total spending on educational projects exceeds the $20 billion in arms sales from the United States to the countries of the GCC now under discussion, a situation which signals a “quiet revolution” in an area once described as a “scientific desert”, according to Reuters columnist Bernd Debusmann. The label, in a U.S. scientific publication, stung as much as a devastating 2002 report by the United Nations Development Program, written not by Western scholars but by Arab experts. They portrayed the Arab region as living in isolation from the world of ideas and lagging behind the rest of the world on virtually everything, from education to respect for human rights and on the status of women.
A look at the month of October and one sees the rate of change. In Abu Dhabi, the UAE’s minister of higher education, Sheikh Nahayan Mabarak al Nahayan, presided over a “Festival of Thinkers [4]” that brought together 16 Nobel Prize winners and intellectuals from around the world with students from the UAE and other Gulf countries. The 160-odd international thinkers who met in Abu Dhabi had hardly left when Arab scholars and experts gathered for a Knowledge Conference in Dubai to promote education, while Michigan State University [5] was busy announcing plans to establish a campus in Abu Dhabi. In neighboring Saudi Arabia, King Abdullah laid the cornerstone of a $2.7 billion research university which will break with rigidly enforced taboos — men and women will study in the same classrooms and women will be allowed to drive on campus, which will be off-limits to the religious police.
– Reuters [6]
October 31, 2007
Israel
Lecturers and Students Return to the Streets in Protest
Israel’s system of higher education appears to be in crisis as for the second time this year students and faculty have gone on strike in protest over higher-education funding (tuition and salaries) and controversial government reform programs. The protests stem from government policy over the last six years that has seen funding for higher education slashed by 20 percent despite rapid increases in enrollments.
According to the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), government spending on higher education in relation to the number of students, GDP, and population growth has fallen from being one of the highest among developed nations to the second lowest between 1998 and 2007, behind only Greece. To make matters worse, tuition is sixth highest among the same 23 OECD nations. Needless to say, standards have suffered with overcrowded classes, deteriorating facilities and less individualized student attention.
From 1999 to 2001, the Labor government of Ehud Barak appointed a commission to look at college tuition. That commission recommended cutting fees in half. The government agreed in 2000 to cut tuition by 25 percent, planning to make up for that lost revenue by returning government support to earlier levels.
But the second intifada broke out in September 2000, freezing all new spending. Colleges and universities were thus hit by a double blow: shrinking tuition revenue and less government support. The funding situation has largely stayed in limbo since then. In 2006, a government-appointed committee was formed to make recommendations aimed at resolving the current situation. A report last July by that committee (Shochat) recommended raising tuition by 74 percent, from US$2,125 to $3,700; introducing a student-loan system; and restoring government support cut by Benjamin Netanyahu’s administration prior to that of Mr. Barak’s.
The Shochat report was the spark for this year’s unrest, and has been on hold ever since, while the start of the academic year has been delayed for a month by a continuing strike by senior faculty members. University officials are warning that the entire year might be lost, especially with the government currently focused on peace talks.
– The Chronicle of Higher Education [7]
November 30, 2007
Qatar
Northwestern Officially Announces Opening of Journalism School in Qatar
Northwestern University [8] announced in November that it would open a branch campus for journalism and communication studies in Qatar. Starting in the fall of 2008, the School of Communication [9] and the Medill School of Journalism [10] will offer programs in journalism, media and integrated marketing communication, and media industries and technologies. The programs will culminate in the first degrees to be conferred by Northwestern away from its main campus, in Evanston, Ill. Administrators hope to enroll about 40 students in the first year. The program will offer courses in journalism ethics, law, and professional practices in addition to standard writing and editing classes, and students will spend 25 percent of their time in the United States and in foreign newsrooms. The School of Communication’s program joins five other U.S. institutions that operate programs and campuses at the multi-campus Education City: Carnegie Mellon, Cornell, Georgetown, Texas A&M, and Virginia Commonwealth (see WENR May Feature [11]).
– Northwestern news release [12]
November 7, 2007
Saudi Arabia
160 Vocational Training Centers to Spearhead ‘Saudization’ Goals
Saudi authorities have set targets of creating 3.6 million jobs within 10 years and becoming less reliant on oil revenues. Part of this diversification will require the development of a local workforce with job-ready skills to reduce an over-reliance on overseas labor. It is hoped that this ‘Saudization’ of the workforce will occur, in part, at 160 new training centers to be created by 2017. To meet this ambitious target, job creation must double each year, with the manufacturing sector a particular target. The first institute in this initiative has already been created, the Higher Institute for Plastics Fabrication, and a second, the Rubber Technology Institute, is under construction.
– AMEInfo [13]
November 25, 2007
United Arab Emirates
Canadian University Set to Open Campus in Abu Dhabi
A Canadian university is getting ready to participate in a billion dollar university to be located in Abu Dhabi, the capital of United Arab Emirates. When completed the campus will be able to accommodate 30,000 learners, and the University of Waterloo [14] (UW) will be just one of a number of universities with a physical presence there. Waterloo has been planning on joining the project for the past two years with colleges of engineering, information and technology, and financial management. The university is currently awaiting final approval from the United Arab Emirates government.
After two years at the United Arab Emirates campus, students will be required to complete their degrees at the UW campus in Canada. A similar arrangement exists between UW and Nanjing University [15] in China. The difference being the campus in Abu Dhabi, which the Ontario government isn’t providing funding for, will be an actual UW campus. Various UW faculty will spend four to eight months at a time teaching in the United Arab Emirates. UW estimates it will have approximately 800 students enrolled at the Abu Dhabi campus with 200 graduating each year. The university is tentatively named the Centre of Excellence for Applied Research and Training (CERT) University. CERT is a consortium of technology companies that serves as the commercial arm of the Higher Colleges of Technology [16], and is “the largest private education provider in the Middle East,” according to its website. CERT is sharing the cost of construction and will provide much of the infrastructure in exchange for a portion of the university’s revenues.
– Macleans [17]
November 5, 2007
Canadian University of Dubai Signs Agreement with French University
The Canadian University of Dubai [18] (CUD) has signed a collaboration agreement with France’s Lyon II University [19] aimed at promoting academic mobility through exchange programs and at promoting the development of industry-specific training, specifically in finance and entrepreneurship. CUD has ties with a number of European and North American universities, and was originally established as a collaboration between Centennial College [20] of Toronto, Canada, and Emirates Investment.
– Zawya [21]
November 4, 2007
London Business School Begins Dubai Classes
The Dubai campus of the London Business School [22] was officially inaugurated in late November after offering its first Executive MBA classes beginning in September, with an initial enrollment of 78 students from 30 different countries. Six more programs have been announced, and are largely aimed at top companies and executives. The school is based at the Dubai Financial Center.
– Dubai Times [23]
November 28, 2007