Regional
Arab University Ranking System Needed
The Arab world needs a ranking and classification system for its universities to promote academic mobility and international collaborations, a pilot study covering seven countries concludes.
Because a regional classification and assessment of higher education institutions in the Middle East and North Africa has not yet been developed, researchers and students are unable to make informed choices in selecting institutions to work with or at, while cooperation among universities regionally and internationally is being hampered, says the study.
The report, Higher Education Classification in the Middle East and North Africa: A pilot study [1], is supported by the Carnegie Corporation and produced in partnership with the Lebanese Association of Educational Studies in Beirut. The lack of an Arab ranking system has made it more difficult for researchers and research agencies to select reliable higher education institutions in the region. It has limited the prospects of networking, exchange, mobility and cooperation with institutions of similar profiles and characteristics, the report says.
“Without a clear understanding of different types of institutions and their features, higher education institutions are often mischaracterized and the distinction between research-oriented and teaching-oriented institutions is not always evident,” the report finds.
The pilot study, covering Jordan, Lebanon, Morocco, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Tunisia, and the United Arab Emirates, was set up to develop a system of classifying higher education institutions in the region. A first step will be to improve the availability of quantifiable and qualitative data on education, which was found to be sorely lacking – both by the authors of the report and by the World Bank in its benchmarking reports.
– University World News [2]
March 23, 2012
Egypt
British University Looking to Expand with New Partners
It began offering classes to 200 students just six years ago, but now the British University in Egypt [3] (BUE) hosts close to 3,000 students and is actively looking for new UK partners to help it to rival longer-established private institutions in Cairo, reports Times Higher Education.
Loughborough University [4] validates 16 BUE programs in engineering, computer science, economics and business administration, while Queen Margaret University [5] began validating its nursing programs in 2008. Located an hour’s drive east of central Cairo, the institution is planning to double enrollment in the next three years and add faculties in pharmacy, communication and new media, dentistry, arts and humanities, and education.
The BUE is just one of several private, foreign-linked universities established in Egypt over the past 10 years. The German University in Cairo [6] was opened in 2003 with the help of the universities of Ulm and Stuttgart. In 2006, the French University in Egypt opened on the outskirts of Cairo in collaboration with four French institutions. In February 2010, the Egypt-Japan University of Science and Technology [7], supported by a consortium of 12 Japanese institutions, received its first students on a campus just outside Alexandria. But the oldest and most prestigious is the American University in Cairo [8] (AUC). Established in 1919, it has around 6,500 students. Unlike the newer universities, the AUC is not overseen by foreign universities but is accredited in its own right by the Middle States Association of Colleges and Schools [9] in the United States.
– Times Higher Education [10]
March 29, 2012
Israel
Harvard and UCLA to Help Establish New Israeli University
Harvard University and the University of California at Los Angeles (UCLA) have said they will help formulate plans for a new university in a Bedouin region of southern Israel, which would operate as a branch of Ben-Gurion University of the Negev [11].
Israel’s president, Shimon Peres, who has been outspoken on the need to expand access to higher education in the region, told the media that he had met with senior officials at Harvard, who promised to assist with academic partnerships. The president of UCLA also pledged that institution’s help, according to a report in YNetNews.
– YNetNews [12]
April 1, 2012
Lebanon
Beirut an Island of Calm for an Increasing Number of U.S. Students
Students from the West looking to study in the Arab world have for years turned to Cairo and Damascus as their favored destinations, but after the Egyptian uprising and the Syrian government’s violent crackdown, students – particularly those from the United States – have begun looking for alternatives. And one capital in particular has remained relatively calm, Beirut in Lebanon.
Even though the U.S. State Department maintains an official travel warning, advising citizens to avoid the country because “the potential… for a spontaneous upsurge in violence remains,” a growing number of American students are venturing into the country – and particularly to the American University of Beirut [13] (AUB). Still, many American universities will not support study abroad programs in countries with travel warnings, and sometimes refuse to accept transfer credits from institutions in those nations.
As a result, many of these institutions have moved their Egyptian and Syrian programs to the countries of Jordan, Morocco, and the United Arab Emirates, explains Peggy Blumenthal, senior counselor to the president at the Institute of International Education [14]. Nonetheless, about 700 U.S. citizens and 2,000 Westerners currently attend AUB, which has seen a roughly 50 percent increase in Western students every year since 2007.
– InsideHigherEd [15]
March 19, 2012
Saudi Arabia
First State Engineering College for Women Announced
The Faculty of Engineering at the Jeddah-based King Abdulaziz University [16] (KAU) has, since 1975, graduated approximately 9,000 engineers; all of them men. This will soon change after the announcement that the university plans to start the Kingdom’s first public sector engineering college for women.
While private sector institutions such as Effat University [17] and Dar Al-Hekma College [18] offer engineering programs for women, KAU will be the first public institution to do so. The college will be launched in September 2012 with programs in computer and biomedical engineering, offered initially only to Saudi women, but to be opened up to foreigners once the college is satisfied the programs are running smoothly.
– Arab News [19]
March 22, 2012
Political-Science Studies Opened to Women
Saudi institutions of higher education will begin enrolling women into the field of political science next year, according to recent reports. Female enrollments in the tertiary sector have grown significantly in Saudi Arabia in recent years, and as a result universities have begun offering degree programs to women that were previously closed to them, including law, journalism, and petroleum engineering.
Nonetheless, in many instances women are still not allowed to actually work in the professions for which they have trained. King Saud University [20] will reportedly be the first university to enroll female political-science students, starting next year.
– Al Arabiya [21]
April 15, 2012
Syria
U.S. Student Visa Restrictions Eased
The U.S. Department of Homeland Security has eased its visa requirements for Syrian students wishing to attend U.S. universities and colleges due to the financial hardships caused by the civil unrest in their homeland.
The move, which was announced in early April and will remain in effect until October 13, 2013, allows Syrians to maintain their visa status while reducing their academic course load and spending more time working on or off campus. In academic year 2010-11, more than 500 Syrian students were studying in the United States, according to the Institute of International Education. [22]
– Federal Register [23]
April 3, 2012