Bahrain
Government Lifts Ban on 4 Private Universities
A ban on four private universities by the Higher Education Council in Bahrain has been lifted after they met demands to improve their administrative and academic standards.
The Council has allowed the Kingdom University [1], Applied Sciences University [2], Bahrain University College [3] and Birla Institute of Technology International Center [4] to resume enrollments. However, business management programs at the Kingdom University and Applied Sciences University will remain banned. Meanwhile, the Gulf University [5] and Delmon University [6] have also been barred from admitting new students until they meet the council’s requirements.
– TradeArabia [7]
December 23, 2009
Israel
Controversial West Bank College Gets Government Support in University Upgrade
Israel’s government is backing the stance of the Ariel University Center of Samaria [8], located in the West Bank, that it is a university and not a college, Haaretz [9] has reported. The institution was founded as a college and has been pushing for university status, with backing from those who advocate a strong Israeli presence in the West Bank. Advocates for Palestinians have criticized the growth of the institution as needlessly disruptive to peace talks.
The government recognized the institution as a university five years ago, however, it was never officially upgraded for lack of support from the Higher Education Council [10]. Regardless, the college in 2007 declared itself a university, calling itself the Ariel University Center of Samaria, angering the authorities who argued, among other things, that there was no such thing as a ‘university college’ in Israel.
Labor Party leader and Defense Minister Ehud Barak on Wednesday said he would recognize the five-year-old government decision to formally upgrade the status of Ariel College to a university.
– Haaretz [9]
January 20, 2010
Qatar
Top French Business School to Offer Degrees
HEC Paris [11] will offer degree programs in Qatar, establishing itself as the center for an oil company’s executive training [12]. The Qatar Foundation [13], which runs the Education City [14] campus in Doha, and HEC Paris signed a deal allowing the top French business school to establish itself in the emirate.
HEC Paris will offer programs such as an executive masters in business administration through the Qatar Foundation’s Management Education and Research Center. The oil company Total said it will make HEC Paris in Qatar its center for management and executive development in the Middle East. Mohamed Fathy Saoud, president of the Qatar Foundation, said HEC was the first French institution to set up shop in Education City, which is already home to branch campuses of a number of prestigious US universities.
– The National [15]
January 29, 2009
United Arab Emirates
Two Dubai-based U.S. Branch Campuses in Fight for Survival
The Chronicle of Higher Education reports that Dubai’s financial turmoil is having serious repercussions for two prominent U.S. branch campuses recently established in the emirate.
Michigan State University [16] and the Rochester Institute of Technology [17] are both struggling to attract students after opening campuses in Dubai in August 2008, a few months before the global economic crisis began to seriously take hold. The two universities established their Dubai operations soon after the emirate had grown a collection of foreign branch campuses, known as Knowledge Village [18], into a more ambitious project known as International Academic City [19].
Michigan State’s branch campus, which is set in International Academic City, was designed to offer primarily undergraduate programs in fields that, during the boom times, were in demand, like construction planning and management, or electrical and computer engineering. The Rochester Institute of Technology is part of a different project known as Dubai Silicon Oasis [20], and had planned to train students for high-tech jobs at soon-to-be built manufacturing and research-and-development operations.
Silicon Oasis is currently largely empty and Michigan State is looking to attract students from nearby campuses with tuition discounts of 50 percent.
In the past year thousands of expatriate employees in Dubai lost their jobs, had their residency permits revoked, and were forced to leave the country. Most foreign university campuses in Dubai, of which there are more than 20, depend on the children of those expatriates for their student base. Thus the financial crisis has translated into a dwindling demand for university places.
Michigan State, for example, enrolls only about 100 students—well short of the 250 it had expected to have by this point, says Brendan Mullan, executive director of the campus.
The situation at RIT appears to be even worse. The institute had opened its campus in a self-contained community that expected to attract international high-tech firms in manufacturing and research and development. The campus was to be the main pipeline that would provide highly skilled workers for those companies. But the high tech firms never came. To add to the university’s woes, the Dubai Silicon Oasis Authority, which was to build a campus for the Rochester Institute of Technology that would one day accommodate 4,000 students has delayed construction for at least another 18 months.
With no campus, a handful of students, and a financial crisis with no end in sight, it’s even more difficult for the institute to attract students.
– The Chronicle of Higher Education [21]
December 14, 2009
New York University Opens Abu Dhabi Campus
Despite reports of trouble for international branch campuses in Dubai (see above), New York University [22] officially opened its Abu Dhabi campus [23] in early December with a view to starting classes in September of this year.
New York University’s position looks much more secure than that of campuses in Dubai, largely because oil-rich Abu Dhabi has financed the entire project, in addition to the fact that there is not a saturation of supply as in Dubai, where more than 20 international campuses are currently present.
– The National [24]
December 7, 2009
Some International Branch Campuses in Dubai May Have Licenses Revoked
Some university branches in Dubai are not meeting the standards of their home campuses and could be closed this year, according to the government department that oversees international institutions present in Dubai’s tax free zones.
The University Quality Assurance International Board (UQAIB), formed last year to regulate the branches, is halfway through assessing 24 free-zone campuses. In a November meeting, as part of their first full assessment of the branch campuses, UQAIB members reviewed 12 free-zone campuses. The remaining 12 institutions will be reviewed in March, after which UQAIB will issue its decisions.
– The National [25]
January 12, 2010