By SARA HAMDAN
DOHA, QATAR — Recent upheavals in the Middle East and North Africa can be traced largely to the region’s youth — millions of young people facing widespread unemployment and seeing a dearth of opportunities ahead of them.
Now, academics are seeking to focus on the role that higher education can play to address their concerns, and the crucial steps that officials need to take to achieve this, like engaging with institutions outside the region, standardizing curriculums and finding alternative sources of financing.
“It is likely that the Arab Spring will certainly affect the governance system of higher education, probably in the direction of more independence, participation and partnerships,” said Rajika Bhandari, deputy vice president of research and evaluation at the Institute of International Education.
The institute presented its new report on the region, “Classifying Higher Education Institutions in the Middle East and North Africa: A Pilot Study,” at the World Innovation Summit for Education in Doha, Qatar, which completed its third annual conference last week.
The WISE conference, as it is known, is an international initiative financed by the Qatar Foundation, a government-funded nonprofit organization for education, science and community development. This year, the forum brought together 1,200 academic leaders and policy makers for three days of discussions on educational reform.
Part of that can be traced to the varying academic models used in the region — either an American model, a French model, or some combination.
Complicating the situation is the recent expansion of private universities. The private sector made up only 10 percent of universities in 1998, but by 2008 it accounted for more than half of all institutions in the region. The report found significant variation across countries: in some, the share of private universities exceeds 80 percent; elsewhere it is less than 20 percent.
“There is no standardized framework for understanding the region’s institutions,” Ms. Bhandari said. “Having more comparable information like this will lead to a deeper understanding of the wide range of institutions in the Arab world and how they must be financed and supported.”
This is particularly tricky in Egypt, where education funding, which largely came from the government, had to rely more heavily on charitable foundations and private funding this year.
“It’s a difficult transition time and even though funds are available, the terrain in Egypt is not clear to anyone, which creates uncertainty,” said Shahinaz Ahmed, chief executive of the Egypt arm of the nonprofit Education for Employment Foundation. “It took us six months to get back on track and raise funds again, but donors realize that education is a long-term investment that ultimately has high return on investment.”
While analysts say that financing for education should come from governments in the long run, they add that more options must be examined.
“There need to be new ideas in financing, new partnerships created, new ways to look at the old means of financing education,” Carol Bellamy, chairwoman of the Global Partnership for Education. “For too long, the education sector has been allergic to engaging with the private sector, but now we’re seeing more private-sector participation.”
The report also examined the issue of accrediting an expanding number of institutions, and the challenge it poses to mobility for students from Arab countries; the number of universities active in the Arab region rose to 467 in 2009, compared with just 174 a decade ago.
“Quantitative growth of higher education in the past decade has, in many cases, taken place at the expense of quality,” said Mr. El Amine. “Nonetheless, some important steps are being taken to address these challenges and aim for international standards.”
During the WISE conference, the issue of ensuring quality of education, and its link to employing young people, was at the forefront of discussions. “We cannot afford to produce graduates who don’t fit the needs of the market anymore,” said Sheika Mozah bint Nasser, chairwoman of the Qatar Foundation “We have to have an education system that prepares them for jobs and builds critical thinking in a dynamic environment.”
