Regional
Islamic Nations Look to Build Education Cooperation
The Jeddah-based Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC [1]) has announced a higher education exchange program, which is being designed to encourage scholarships, faculty exchanges, and collaboration on distance learning methods and research projects among its 57 member countries.
Implementation of the initiative began with an offer of 10 special scholarships from the University of Kuala Lumpur. Universities in Turkey and Pakistan are also poised to offer scholarships under the new program.
OIC member states have already been offering scholarships to students from other OIC countries, routing offers through the OIC secretariat. But there were bureaucratic hurdles and a mismatch, as in some years countries made no offers. With a growing number of member states now offering scholarships, particularly at graduate and post-doctoral levels in fields such as science, engineering and medicine, the special OIC secretariat for exchanges can follow up on country commitments and match applications to offers.
It will also work to minimize hurdles and delays, in order to facilitate a growing number of joint research projects, another component of the program. This will involve exchange of researchers for ongoing projects and the initiation of new joint research of interest to the countries involved.
– ICEF Monitor [2]
July 17, 2012
Egypt
Universities Look for Bigger Role in International Education
Egypt’s Alexandria University announced in July that it has plans and partnership agreements to set up branch campuses internationally in both Lebanon and Malaysia. Meanwhile, the Egyptian government is looking into establishing an Arab higher education area and joining the Arab and European Leadership Network for Higher Education. The initiatives, it is hoped, will give Egypt’s universities a greater regional presence, facilitate the mobility of graduate students among Arab universities and help improve university leadership, governance and management.
Egyptian universities currently have a number of international branch campuses, including a branch of Alexandria University (Tong city) in South Sudan and a branch of Cairo University in the Sudanese capital Khartoum, with faculties in four Sudanese states.
Egypt’s Supreme Council of Universities has formed a committee to look into the establishment of an Arab higher education area, or AHEA, according to a report [3] published by the Sada el-balad website. The AHEA would focus on facilitating mobility among graduate students by harmonizing Arab higher education systems. Under the plan, a system of joint certificates for masters and doctoral degrees among participating Arab universities would be set up.
To tackle leadership challenges in the Arab world, three universities from Egypt, three from Morocco and two from Lebanon and Tunisia have joined the Arab and European Leadership Network for Higher Education, ARELEN, which the Jordan-based Association of Arab Universities and the UK-based Cardiff Metropolitan University have agreed to host.
– University World News [4]
August 12, 2012
Iran
Women Barred from University Programs
Following government orders, Iranian universities are preventing women from enrolling in dozens of fields of study for the coming academic year. Female students have been barred from 36 state universities and 77 subjects, according to local media reports.
An official at the ministry that oversees universities has offered different reasons for the new policy, with one being that universities lack the necessary infrastructure to separate women and men. According to media reports, most programs that are now closed off to women are in engineering and were until last year accessible to both genders. However, according to an open letter [5] from the Nobel laureate Shirin Ebadi to the head of the United Nations women’s organization, the newly restricted programs include a broader range of subjects.
– Rooz 1709 [6]
August 7, 2012
Israel
Cabinet Endorses University Status of West Bank University College
Israel’s cabinet in September endorsed a controversial proposal to upgrade the Ariel University Center of Samaria [7], a higher-education institution in the West Bank, to full university status, despite opposition from Israel’s education minister and the heads of six of the country’s seven research universities. The university leaders have lodged an appeal against the move with the High Court of Justice.
The education minister, Gideon Sa’ar, presented the resolution to the cabinet and argued that the establishment of an eighth university would “enhance the higher-education system in Israel.” The cabinet resolution is symbolic, the newspaper Ha’aretz [8] reported, since the change of status is now a legal matter before the high court and must also be approved by the attorney general.
– Haaretz [8]
September 9, 2012
Kuwait
Plan to Increase University Access Includes Overseas Scholarships, New Campuses
The government of Kuwait has develop a strategy to increase access to tertiary studies that includes strengthening postsecondary pathways into vocational and higher education; developing world-class, independent universities in different regions; encouraging the creation of private universities; and providing scholarships for study abroad.
For the current academic year, Kuwait’s university council was able to approve the acceptance of only 7,859 Kuwaiti students for the first semester of 2012-13, and was forced to postpone the acceptance of 1,540 students until the second semester. Kuwait’s current tertiary enrollment rate is just 18.9 percent, which is well below most other Arab states, such as Lebanon (52.5), Bahrain (51.2) and Jordan (40.7).
The new strategy calls for, among other things, diversifying routes of secondary education by creating two paths: for academic education through universities and for vocational education through technical schools. In addition, more private universities will be encouraged to stand alongside Kuwait’s two state-supported institutions of higher education: Kuwait University and the Public Authority for Applied Education and Training or PAAET [9], a two-year college.
Faridah Ali, acting secretary general of the Private Universities Council, told University World News that 16 private institutions have been licensed in Kuwait: nine have already started, three are expected to open in the next academic year, and the remaining four will start soon thereafter. The operational private universities have already enrolled about 15,000 students, and they graduated about 1,700 students in 2011.
The strategy also calls for increasing the number of scholarships for studying abroad. Official figures indicate that there are about 50,000 Kuwaiti expatriates studying abroad, mainly as a result of not being able to complete their studies due to lack of university places at home.
One of the first steps in implementing the new strategy will be in establishing two new higher education institutions: Sabah Al-Salem University City, and Jaber University for Applied Sciences (JUAS). The US$5.8 billion Sabah Al-Salem University City [10] will house 11 colleges on the main campus, with an additional five colleges on the medical campus. The facilities are expected to be completed in the 2014-15 academic year, and will reportedly accommodate 40,000 students and 10,000 faculty. Under the Ministry of Higher Education, the other new university, JUAS, will focus on advanced, work-oriented teaching and on applied research and development, with the aim of promoting the development of the scientific workforce and technology-based industry.
– University World News [11]
August 26, 2012