Iran
Islamic Changes Planned for Social Sciences
Plans are afoot in Iran to bring the teaching of social sciences at universities into line with Islamic teachings over the next few years.
Senior education official Abolfazl Hassani, announcing the restrictions of 12 social sciences in October, said that the curriculum of those subjects is based on the Western school of thought and therefore not in line with Islamic fundamentals.
Hassani said no new departments relating to the 12 fields of study will be allowed to open, and 70 percent of the content currently being taught is slated for revision. The changes, intended to bring the courses into line with the religious teachings of the Islamic republic, will be finalized by the summer of 2011. The announcement is seen as a response to criticisms of the social sciences voiced by Supreme Leader Ayatollah Khamenei in August 2009. Khamenei criticized the social sciences for engendering doubt about religious principles and suggested that the authorities look seriously into altering the curriculums of social science courses.
Students from Tehran, says the offensive demonstrates the “very fragile” position of the social sciences in Iran. Yet students who spoke to RFE/RL believe that authorities will ultimately fail in their renewed efforts to “Islamicize” humanities.
– RFE/RL [1]
November 25, 2010
Israel/Palestinian Territories
Controversial Israeli West Bank University Enjoys Healthy Enrollment Among Arabs
The controversial Ariel University Center of Samaria [2] is seeking to become a fully accredited university, but because of a West Bank settlement near Nablus, which most of the world considers illegal, many Israelis, including some academics, have fiercely opposed its attempts to gain full university status.
Nationalist politicians welcome the university as a symbol of the success of Israel’s settlement project, but among the 9,000 students, there are 500 Israeli Arab students at the university. The proportion of Arab students, 6 percent, is below an average of about 12 percent across all Israeli colleges, however their presence at an institution that symbolizes the Israeli occupation and is the largest Israeli employer in the West Bank surprises many, reports The Chronicle of Higher Education.
Administrators at the Ariel University Center are proud to have the Arab students, saying their enrollment is an example of loyalty and equality among Israeli citizens. For their part, the Arab students reportedly do not to feel uncomfortable attending the college despite its reputation and location.
– The Chronicle of Higher Education [3]
November 17, 2010
Tel Aviv Recruits International Academics Successfully
Tel Aviv University [4] has announced that it has recruited 50 researchers and professors to return to Israel from other countries where they held academic positions — part of a campaign for “brain gain” to reverse a trend of top academic talent leaving the country. The recruits are part of a five-year campaign to significantly increase the size of the university faculty. Among the institutions that lost scholars to Tel Aviv: Carnegie Mellon, Cornell and New York Universities.
– Tel Aviv University News [5]
December 2010
Qatar
The Future is Education
Qatar, one of the world’s richest states, hopes to wean itself off an economic dependency on gas by investing billions of dollars on education and luring some of the world’s top universities to its shores, in a bid to ensure prosperity for future generations in a post-carbon age.
While Qatar sits on the world’s third-largest natural gas reserves behind Russia and Iran, and is the world’s largest exporter of the fuel in its super-cooled form, its future lies in the development of its human resources, according to Sheik Abdulla bin Ali Al Thani, vice president of Qatar’s Education City [6].
“We are blessed with the wealth of oil and gas, and this is not going to last forever. We need to use that money wisely to invest in our people so they can help build Qatar economically in a sustainable way,” Sheik Abdulla said at a recent conference on education in the capital Doha.
Qatar has worked quietly on developing Education City–a sprawling 15 million-square-meter campus with a planned capacity of around 100,000, whose centerpiece comprises some of the world’s leading universities, including Virginia Commonwealth University [7], Weill Cornell Medical College [8], Texas A&M [9], Carnegie Mellon [10], Georgetown School of Foreign Service [11] and Northwestern University [12] — all from the United States. In the summer, HEC Paris [13], one of France’s top business schools, said it would offer a range of courses in Qatar, including MBA programs. The latest addition is University College London [14], one of the U.K.’s oldest and most prestigious universities.
Competition for places is fierce. Some 63 new undergraduates–of which 38 were Qatari–joined Virginia Commonwealth University this year and around 300 applied. Out of 1,300 applicants at Carnegie Mellon, 86 students, roughly a third of whom were Qataris, enrolled in the 2010-2011 year.
The government invested US$4.76 billion, or 15 percent of this year’s huge $32.4 billion budget in education. Still, a western style education in Qatar is expensive. Tuition fees for the 2010-2011 academic year at Qatar’s Weill Cornell Medical College are $45,545 for the full medical program, while the cost of year’s tuition at Carnegie Mellon is $41,500, not including books, supplies and other additional fees. Even for a rich nation like Qatar, prices like these put higher education out of reach for some locals.
– Dow Jones [15]
December 23, 2010
United Arab Emirates
Region’s First Graduate Institution Focused On Renewable Energy Inaugurated
The Masdar Institute of Science and Technology, [16] the Middle East’s first graduate research institution dedicated to renewable energy and clean environmental technologies, was officially inaugurated in Abu Dhabi on November 23.
The Masdar Institute, which only offers graduate programs, was launched as part of a broader government effort to shift to a sustainable knowledge-based economy and make Abu Dhabi an international hub for alternative energy.
“Our students are our ambassadors, and we want them to show how seriously Abu Dhabi is taking human capital development,” said Fred Moavenzadeh, the president of the institute. “If companies hire our students rather than bringing in people from Britain or the US, that shows the quality of the education here.”
The institute currently has 41 professors and 170 students from the United Arab Emirates and 32 other nations. On completion of the second phase of construction, the institute will educate in excess of 600 graduate students with 9 open laboratories, 2 clean rooms, 13 hi-bay laboratories, a 90-seat auditorium, 12 classrooms and 324 student apartments.
– The National [17]
December 14, 2010