GCC countries have always been the gold rush for European and US Universities. As there is petro dollar and high demand for foreign degrees among both Arabs and expatriates, many foreign universities have busily set up their shops for the last two decades. So the Investment in education in the Gulf countries has seen a dramatic increase in lately.
Moreover, Governments in the Gulf countries who were very eager to create employable youngsters among Arabs also made huge investments in higher education sector. Governments have engaged in highly ambitious projects to put themselves on the global education map by building new schools and universities; substituting English for Arabic as the medium of instruction; and importing British and Australian teachers, advisers and professors.
But these policies have had little impact on the quality of education and the prospects of graduates. Education has simply been commercialised, with degree mills becoming the norm, and the Gulf States have produced few noteworthy original writers or scientists with strong regional recognition.
Why the failure? Education remains poorly understood: there is still a strong merchant mentality in the Gulf countries, which means that people fail to understand that top schools cannot be erected like concrete buildings in 24 hours and that education is an accumulation of experiences. The latest computer gadgets and foreign expertise can serve only as a support for policies that require diligence, discipline and, most of all, a merit system that goes against the tribal traditions of these countries. What is needed is a change in the core components of the educational culture.
Thousands of students have been sent abroad through government scholarships to little end result because the students lack the necessary educational foundations and because the programmes, which are poorly and inefficiently supervised, are based less on merit and .
Gulf students tend to read very little. The oral tradition of the culture remains an obstacle towards moving from poetry to critical reasoning. Moreover, education is largely equated only with obtaining a diploma, and there is little concern about the journey. Students are continuously looking for loopholes and shortcuts to a degree - a final product that is associated with prestige rather than content.
Among the Gulf emirates, Dubai is a different case. Dubai has started to invest in higher education early, and favoured quantity over quality in order quickly to reach a critical mass of players, hoping this would deter the other emirates from investing in higher education. As a result, Dubai initially accepted all comers, mostly partners from the US and UK (and a few Australians and Indians). It also has an over-reliance on foreign students. But eventually many of these Universities were forced to shut their door and left the place forever while many other universities are struggling to catch as much students as they want. Anyway, the overhyped Dubai higher education dream got a big shock through economic slowdown. So now the outstanding question is: why would they choose to study in Dubai?
The other Gulf countries or emirates have chosen not to invest in higher education, except for a few 'me-too' initiatives. They have their pride, though, and would obviously like to be able to give their youth a proper education.
The future of higher education in the Gulf revolves around the issues of numbers and quality. Around 160 million new students worldwide will enter the higher education landscape in the next 30 years. But these new students will come mostly from India, China and South-East Asia. And the Gulf countries are not alone in eyeing them up.
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