Higher Education in the Gulf States (eBook)

Introduction

Peter Mackenzie Smith

This book derives from the contributions and discussions held at the conference ‘Higher Education in the GCC States: building economies, societies and nations’, which was organised by the London Middle East Institute of the School of Oriental and African Studies in London in November 2007. They are supplemented by additional material considered by the organisers as being relevant to the theme and arising from discussion sessions at the conference.

The rationale for the conference was that it was appropriate to consider at this time the rapid expansion of higher education in the six member countries of the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) and to review the ways in which each country was designing and implementing this expansion and the reform programmes that underpin it. Each country is pursuing its own route in developing tertiary education, but there are common trends and themes which the conference sought to identify and share. This introduction seeks to reflect these common considerations and to examine their manifestations in the individual countries of the GCC.

No review of the current higher education systems in the Gulf countries should ignore the definitive World Bank development report, The Road not Traveled, published by the Bank in early 2008. A digest and commentary of the report’s findings by Mari Luomi are therefore part of this volume. Its main conclusion, which covers all levels of education in the Middle East and North Africa, is that the education systems in the region require a new approach to reform, based on an emphasis on public accountability and incentives and on seeking to close the gap between the supply of educated individuals and both internal and external labour demand. These two principal strands appear to a greater or lesser degree in most of the contributions to this book, albeit under different headings. This is perhaps best reflected in the emphasis on the development of independent quality assurance systems in almost all the countries involved and on the awareness of the need for greater relevance of equipping graduates with skills and capabilities more in tune with the requirements of business, industry and the world of employment, both within the region and on an international level.

The main themes in higher education in the region that emerge from this book, generally illustrated from experience and observation in individual countries, are:

• Expansion from a small historical base,

• Access to higher education and the issue of gender,

• Quality and accountability,

• International links and partnerships,

• Meeting private and public sector employment needs,

• Nationalisation of the labour force, especially in the smaller Gulf states.

All these areas are interlinked, with some cross-cutting dimensions which touch upon each. So, for example, most Gulf universities and colleges interact with partner institutions in Europe, North America and Australia or are branches of them, as in the case illustrated by the chapter on the British University in Dubai, and these relationships have assumed profound importance for all aspects of tertiary education. A cross-cutting theme, emphasised by the World Bank and by other contributors, is the impact on the institutions of the region of globalisation in general and of the desire to create knowledge economies in particular. Another cross-cutting theme is the extent to which states should cater for the educational needs of their expatriate communities.

Expansion and History

Christopher Davidson’s chapter provides an important reminder of the origins of educational development in the Gulf and of the remarkable fact that, apart from in Saudi Arabia, the first ministries of education in the region were only established in the early 1970s, following the British withdrawal. He traces the origins of basic and secondary education and the roles played by the merchants of the region and by neighbouring Arab states in setting up the first schools following what he describes as a period of neglect under the British. He notes the transition from religious to secular schools, the establishment of specific schools for girls, the use of overseas scholarships as the initiator for higher education, and the impact of these developments on the traditional societies of the region. His chapter also reminds us that, until as late as the early 1960s, some of the countries of the region had not yet begun significant development of their oil and gas resources and relied heavily on other Arab countries for financial as well as educational support. Thus emerging institutions originally relied on predominantly Egyptian and Palestinian teachers both for teaching and for curriculum development and on Kuwait in particular for financial support. Although the public purses of the Gulf countries might now be said to be more than sufficient for domestic purposes, the tendency to import teaching and education management expertise has remained until today.

Gregory Starrett’s chapter widens the historical view to the origins of modern higher education in the Ottoman Empire, particularly Turkey, Egypt and Iraq. He also introduces the concept that schools and universities need to be seen as engines of change, development and progress in their societies and that this brings with it the risk of instability. Noting that the ministries of education across the region are now adept at using the international language of management, policy and strategy development, he raises the perennial questions of the purposes of higher education and whether universities should be ‘corporate bodies of faculty which decide the nature of the curriculum and of their own research programmes’ or commercial corporations run along modern management lines with their own criteria for success. While his general conclusion is that education can effectively be all things to all people, he cautions that higher education should not be constantly aimed at the ‘whims of the market’. Starrett’s chapter offers insights on the leadership and inspirational and charismatic role he sees both individuals and institutions playing through education. His views challenge those responsible for higher education development in the region to balance carefully their objectives for institutions of higher education.

The expansion from this base forty years ago to the provision of all levels of education within the region in the early twenty-first century has been dramatic. The chapters in this book illustrate the achievements of the region in establishing and developing new universities and tertiary colleges at a remarkable rate. They also describe the population growth rates and the challenges that all the Gulf states face in meeting the needs and aspirations of their very youthful populations.

Access to Higher Education and the Issue of Gender

The principal contributions in this volume on access and gender are by Warren Fox and Jane Bristol-Rhys. Both look in detail at the experience of the United Arab Emirates, but the theme is a general one, with greater detail in terms of facts and figures for the region available in the World Bank report.

Fox describes the achievements of the UAE in tertiary education and highlights the paradox of higher education in a country seeking to build a knowledge economy yet undergoing a funding crisis in investment programmes in this sector, which are currently well below international comparators. His account covers the complexity of a federal strategic planning process that is being initiated against a backdrop of ongoing, individual emirate-level actions, especially in Dubai. He reveals that while the public sector may be facing funding constraints, the private sector is not. The pattern of new developments includes an expanding ‘national university’ at Al-‘Ayn (where 70 per cent of the student body are women), new colleges of higher education and a number of private universities, including many accredited by foreign institutions (for example the Sorbonne and the New York Institute of Technology in Abu Dhabi) and the sixteen branch campuses of foreign universities operating from within the Dubai Knowledge Village. The opportunities for higher education for UAE nationals, both male and female, and for expatriate students have consequently greatly increased, although significant constraints remain evident. Many male UAE nationals, for example, have not completed high school and often seek alternative employment in the public sector or in family businesses.

Bristol-Rhys describes the way in which this expansion has resulted in many more gender-mixed campuses, especially in the private education sector. Gender-integrated public sector institutions conduct separate classes for men and women. She points out that women are now in the majority among students of public sector institutions and that their participation in the labour force is increasing. She tempers these observations, however, by describing the social constraints under which women live in a patriarchal society. The overall picture is of a higher education system which is increasingly developing through public and private sector engagement to meet the demand of its nationals, and, to some extent, its expatriate population, with the qualification that demotivated males continue to seek alternatives to higher education while females take greater advantage of educational opportunities, but face discrimination in the labour market.

Quality and Accountability

A recurrent theme in the following chapters is how to improve and measure the quality of higher education offered by both public and private higher education...