Regional
Rapidly Increasing Interest in the Arab Region Among U.S. Students
Mobile American college students are increasingly choosing to spend their year abroad in countries of the Middle East such as Egypt, Lebanon, Syria, Jordan and the United Arab Emirates. According to a February 2010 report from the Institute of International Education [1], which administers the Fulbright program for the U.S. government, the number of American students studying in Arabic-speaking countries increased six-fold to 3,399 in 2007 from 562 in 2002.
A small number compared with the more than 33,000 American students who studied in the United Kingdom in 2007 and the 13,000 who studied in China, but it still represents the fastest growing region for study abroad. Between 2006 and 2007 the number of American students studying in Arab countries rose nearly 60 percent while China had only a 19 percent increase and the U.K., 1.9 percent.
These numbers have been bolstered by the Critical Language Scholarship Program [2], begun in 2006 by the State Department, to encourage college-age students to study Arabic, as well as 12 other listed languages, including Punjabi and Azerbaijani. The program has since become so popular that this year eligibility was restricted to college and graduate students who have already had at least one year of Arabic.
– New York Times [3]
August 8, 2010
Iran
Students Heading to U.S. Universities in Increasing Numbers
Iranians are studying in the United States in numbers not seen in more than a decade. Since 1979, when over 50,000 Iranians were in the United States studying, the number of Iranian students in the United States has plummeted, bottoming out at fewer than 1,700 students in 1999. Since then, the number of students has begun a slow but steady rise to just over 3,500 in 2008/9. There are currently more Iranians in the country now than at any other point since 1994, according to data from the Institute of International Education [1].
Iranian students said they chose to come to the United States because of its superior schools and generous research financing. These students believe that despite rising political tensions between the United States and Iran, their American educations will put them in line for the best jobs when they return home.
However, the hurdles are many. Student visas can take many months to obtain, and because of security concerns, Iranians face background checks that other nationals do not. Because there is no American Embassy in Iran, students must travel to American embassies or consulates in other countries to apply, which can be very costly. Once finally approved, students often receive a visa that allows for just one entry, meaning they cannot leave the country to return home or to travel abroad without beginning the process all over again.
In spite of the restrictions, students are still coming in increasing numbers, a fact that some attribute to the political crackdown in Iran that started when President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad took office in 2005. Students who demonstrate or speak out against the government are reportedly often blacklisted from universities, forcing them to go abroad in greater numbers.
The government discourages its top students from studying in Europe and the United States, pushing them toward China, Russia and Malaysia instead. However, many students are still coming, as they see their peers score high-paying jobs in Iran with an American degree in hand on their return, despite government suspicion.
– New York Times [4]
August 10, 2010
Government Restricts Humanities Enrollments
The Iranian government says it plans to restrict the number of students admitted to humanities programs at universities, RFE/RL reports. The announcement was made in late August by Abolfazl Hassani, the director of the government’s Office of Development of Higher Education, and it follows criticism of humanities studies last year by Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. He called the humanities a field of study that “promotes skepticism and doubt in religious principles and beliefs,” and that it was worrying that almost two-thirds of university students in Iran were seeking degrees in the humanities.
Saeed Peyvandi, a Paris-based expert on education, told RFE/RL that the Science Ministry has started a coordinated, centralized policy to monitor and control universities, including students, professors, chancellors, and curriculums. The move to limit humanities studies comes amid a wave of firings of faculty heads at public universities across the country.
– RFE/RL [5]
August 26, 2010
Saudi Arabia
Students on Government Scholarships Barred from Attending Some Foreign Universities
In a bid to prevent too many Saudis attending any one particular institution, the Ministry of Higher Education [6] announced recently that Saudi Arabia will stop sending its students to a number of foreign and Arab universities. The ministry believes that if there are too many Saudi students at individual institutions, the cultural and linguistic aspect of the study-abroad experience might be hampered, and so quotas have been set.
A spokesman for the ministry was not specific on the exact quotas or institutions, but said the decision would be effective September 2011, at the beginning of the next academic year. According to him, the universities to which the Kingdom will not send more students are in the United States, Britain, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, Egypt, Malaysia, Pakistan and Jordan.
Under the King Abdullah Foreign Scholarship Program, a large number of Saudi students are currently doing their higher studies in a number of foreign universities. The spokesman said the decision to stop sending more Saudi students abroad covers a number of popular Egyptian universities, in addition to nine government and private universities in Jordan, two in Malaysia, seven in Pakistan and 25 in Australia where students are now only allowed to enroll at the so-called Group of Eight [7] research universities.
– Arab News [8]
August 18, 2010
Higher Education Expansion Plans Continue Apace
In its ninth five-year development plan [9] (2010-14), the Saudi government announced that it plans to continue pumping money into higher education to keep up the rapid expansion of higher education, with close to US$250 million per year budgeted for science and technology research grants.
The government also plans to increase the number of available tertiary places to 1.7 million from a reported 850,000 in 2009 and 636,000 in 2006. The 24 public universities will admit 278,000 secondary school graduates in the new academic year (2010-11) and private universities and colleges will provide an additional 15,000 places. In addition, the government plans to build 25 technology colleges, 28 technical institutes and 50 industrial training institutes, as well as 10 research centers and 15 university technological innovation centers in association with King Abdul Aziz City for Science and Technology [10] (KACST).
The Saudi government hopes to draw new faculty from among the 88,000 students it has already sent abroad to study under the King Abdullah Foreign Scholarship Program.
– Saudi Council of Ministers [9]
August 10, 2010