Israel

Report: Number of Israeli Scholars in the U.S. is Equal to 25% of those in Israel

According to the findings of a new report on the Israeli brain drain, the number of Israeli academics working in the United States is roughly equivalent to 25 percent of the total working in Israel.

The report, Brain Drained, is based on a study by Dan Ben-David of the Department of Public Policy at Tel Aviv University. It says that “a massive policy breakdown” in higher education has created conditions in which “the rate of academic emigration from Israel to the United States is unparalleled in the Western world.”

A total of 1,409 Israeli academics were working in the United States in 2003-4, a number which represented 24.9 percent of the entire senior staff in Israel’s academic institutions that year, according to OECD figures. Israeli politicians have long been concerned about a brain drain, and a government reform advisory committee last year recommended specific new spending to bring academics home, while encouraging those at home to stay there.

– The Chronicle of Higher Education
February 22, 2008

United Arab Emirates

Australian University Announces Dubai Plans

Murdoch University, an Australian research university, announced in March that it will be establishing a study center at Dubai International Academic City, with classes in media, mass communications and business beginning this August. The Perth-based university will be partnering with Global Institute Middle East and is looking for an initial enrollment of up to 120 students.

– Gulf News
March 2, 2008

Vegas Investigates UAE Campus

The University of Nevada Las Vegas (UNLV) is looking into the possibility of opening a campus in the Middle East. The university is conducting a feasibility study on a plan to open a hospitality program in the UAE emirate of Ras al Khaimah, reports the Las Vegas Sun. The UAE branch, which could open as soon as spring 2010, would offer a bachelor’s degree in hotel administration and a master’s degree in hospitality administration. The curriculum would be identical to what is offered at the Las Vegas campus.

– Las Vegas Sun
March 21, 2008

Saudi Arabia

Scholarship Recipients Receive Overseas Behavioral Training

The thousands of students that have been recipients of King Abdullah Scholarship awards to study abroad have been receiving orientation courses on how to behave when overseas. A group of more than 3,000 students attended a recent four-day course in the capital, Jeddah, before traveling to other countries to take part in the scholarship program, which has in the last three years allowed more than 25,000 Saudis the opportunity to receive training abroad.

According to Arab News, the course stressed the need for students to stick to their religion but also to respect local traditions. Appropriate limits when dealing with members of the opposite sex were also addressed. Nasser Al-Maiman, assistant general secretary of the Muslim World League, told students it was fine to interact in “normal” situations, for example while studying. But he added: “What is forbidden in Islam is that a man and a woman sit together in a closed environment or have inappropriate conversations.”

– Arab News
January 27, 2008

Saudi Women Constitute 58% of the Tertiary Student Body

Fifty-eight percent of university students are now female, according to Higher Education Minister Dr. Khaled Al-Anqari, who was speaking at the signing of a cooperation agreement with Egyptian higher education officials.

– Arab News
February 28, 2007

Three U.S. Universities Announce Cooperation Agreements with Planned Saudi Research University

Two prominent California universities and one Texan university announced lucrative contracts in March to recruit faculty for and undertake collaborative research with one of the richest – and yet-to-be-completed – universities in the world.

The University of California at Berkeley will reportedly receive $28 million, Stanford University $25 million and the University of Texas $20 million under five-year agreements with King Abdullah University of Science and Technology (KAUST), a graduate research university slated to open in fall 2009 with a multi-billion dollar endowment. Berkeley will be consulting in mechanical engineering, Stanford in computer science and engineering, and Texas in computational earth science and engineering.

In addition to the announced U.S. collaboration agreements, the planned Saudi university has announced collaborations with a number of international institutions including the American University in Cairo, Indian Institute of Technology, Institut Français du Pétrole, National University of Singapore, and Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution.

Officials at the U.S. institutions have been quick to stress that unlike in Saudi Arabia’s higher education system more generally, KAUST will operate as a Western-style institution. This comes in the face of a torrent of criticism that has accused the three universities of selling out to what many consider to be a highly repressive regime with little regard for the rights of women, homosexuals, and certain religious and ethnic groups. A lack of academic freedom in the Saudi tertiary system has also been raised as a major concern.

Stanford has agreed to help select KAUST’s first 10 faculty members in applied mathematics and computer science and create a curriculum in the two disciplines. Other elements of the agreement include faculty exchange (including visiting fellowships for KAUST faculty at Stanford and one-week courses at KAUST taught by a handful of Stanford faculty), and evaluation of the applied mathematics and computational science programs in 2010 and 2012. The Berkeley and Texas deals are structured in a similar manner.

– The New York Times
March 6, 2008

Ministry Changes University Entrance Criteria

The Ministry of Education announced in March that effective from this year university entrance procedures will change, with secondary schools preparing their own final exams in place of centralized ministry exams. Schools will continue to submit GPAs as part of the admissions process for university students.

Previously, the university entrance exam accounted for 30 percent of a student’s university application packet. Now, the high school GPA will be averaged over grades 11 and 12, and final examinations will account for just 15 percent of the total evaluation.

– Arab News
March 4, 2008

Cal Poly Working on Saudi Cooperation Project

California Polytechnic State University has been engaged in negotiations with Jubail University College in Saudi Arabia on a proposed $6 million consulting deal. As the negotiations currently stand, faculty from Cal Poly would, over a period of five years, develop and implement civil, computer, electrical and mechanical engineering programs at the newly minted Saudi institution.

The initiative has been controversial among many at Cal, primarily because only male students would be able to enroll in the program at its outset, and because there is skepticism that opportunities will only be available to faculty members deemed appropriate by Saudi authorities. Beyond the question of access for Cal Poly faculty, some are wondering if the university should involve itself with a country and education system that hold such different values to its own — including those that sanction gender segregation.

In an interview with Inside Higher Ed William Durgin, Vice President for Academic Affairs, summed up the voices of those in favor of the initiative by stating that his “fundamental belief is that one simply must understand people across the world, and this is a wonderful opportunity for America to build another bridge to a country in the Mideast.”

– Inside Higher Ed
February 22, 2008

Bogus Universities Proliferate in Kingdom

According to a report in the Bahrain Tribune, there are a considerable number of unauthorized universities operating in Saudi Arabia despite periodic warnings from the Ministry of Higher Education that they shut their operations. These suspect institutions include American University of London, Al-Shurook University, Belford University, and Al- Ishraq University.

These universities have reportedly entered into deals with commercial offices, telling them to enroll people wanting to get degrees online with little or no study. According to the Ministry of Education, private universities and colleges that are legally authorized to operate in the Kingdom are: Prince Sultan University, Arab Open University and Al-Faisal University in Riyadh; and Dar Al-Hekma, Effat College, Business Administration College , Soliman Fakih College for Science and Nursing, and Prince Sultan College for Tourism in Jeddah.

– Bahrain Tribune
February 21, 2008