3	The State of Higher Education in 1994 and Prospects for the Future
	3.2	Quality and Differentiation in Higher Education
		It used to be said that ministers of education in Third World countries were so interested in quantitative expansion of education that they could not be persuaded to worry much about quality. Pressures toward uniform treatment of institutions in national systems have also put difficulties in the way of maintaining higher quality in at least some institutions. Leading national universities like Delhi University in India or the University of the Philippines have sometimes been able to maintain standards well above those common elsewhere in their countries, and special institutions like El Colegio de Mexico or the Indian Institutes of Technology have had distinguished programmes and achievements. But such examples are not numerous, and one could point to efforts to build "Centres of excellence" that fell back, after a time, to the common standard (as was heard in 1983 about the Quaid-i-Azam University in Islamabad). It has generally been difficult, particularly in the egalitarian atmosphere that has been common in developing countries, to sustain diversity in the standards and character of public higher education.
		As dissatisfaction with the quality of higher education has spread, there have been efforts at diagnosis which have frequently pointed to the unsuitability of imported Western educational models in the cultures and conditions of Third World countries. In the 1950s and 1960s there was criticism of models imported from the European colonial powers, which criticism gave opportunities to Americans to offer their land-grant universities and four-year undergraduate programmes as alternative models (while Soviets built technical institutes with competitively elaborate equipment). In the radicalism of the 1970s there was enthusiasm for the "developmental university" that was more engaged in national development programmes than universities had hitherto been. (The Harvard recommendations for AKU to devote itself to "generic problems of development" may have borne traces of that 1970s enthusiasm.)
		Educational systems, however, tend to be remarkably conservative and difficult to change, so that patterns imposed in the colonial era persist to the present. And since they have lasted more than a generation of national sovereignty thus far, one must face the prospect that they may not change radically in the quarter century we are looking ahead.
		Continuing efforts are nevertheless being made to find better and more rewarding patterns of higher education. A movement in recent years that has evident relevance for AKU has been the establishment of Islamic universities, not specifically for the training of religious specialists, but as an alternative to existing universities built on Western models. Two such institutions have been brought to our particular attention. Description of their aims and character may serve to indicate something about the existing competition and range of possibilities for AKU as a Muslim university.
		Our first example is The Al al-Bayt University (The House of the Prophet University) at Mafraq, Jordan.
		This is a new institution, established pursuant to a Royal directive, dated 17 August 1992; it was to begin its first classes in September 1994. This university, though a governmental establishment of the Hashemite Kingdom shares some characteristics in common with AKU. It is open to Muslims and non-Muslims, males and females, at graduate and undergraduate levels. It aims to "teach the various sciences ... with a view to preparing the Muslim scientifically and religiously, at the same time". The royal directive found a division between those universities and post-graduate institutes in the Arab and Islamic world that used "scientific methodologies ... while others have concentrated on God-given codes and divine revelation, accepting parts and meditating on others, seeking from all enlighten ment and guidance in this life"'. A new kind of university was declared to be an "urgent need", one that would combine the "requirements of scientific methodology on the one hand, and ... of belief and clarity of vision on the other". The decree challenged the division of modern culture in "Western and Eastern [parts] ... ,for modern culture is one universal culture".
		From this position, King Hussein drew conclusions of remarkable breadth :
		"Therefore, the Muslim's field of vision must not be confined to his own history and culture and to propagating his own beliefs and values; its scope should be widened to include other cultures so that the Muslim may know where he stands and understand the role he can undertake to enrich modern culture with his own, without any debilitating sense of alienation or isolation, for only then will he feel that the world around him is more like a home to which he can resort and only then will the rest of mankind appear to him as one community, of which he is an inalienable member."
		In charging his Prime Minister with responsibility for setting up this Al al-Bayt University for Science and Humanities, King Hussein expressed the hope that it "will bridge the gap ... in the present higher educational system in both the Arab and Islamic Worlds and build the round Islamic personality which is at one with the spirit of the age and fully appreciates not only the nature of reason and science but also the nature of belief and spiritual values". (our emphasis)
		The resulting design as set forth by the university president is that of a very liberal institution, presenting "the true image of Islam as a way of life that does not seek to impose itself on others". The aim is more explicitly for the education of Muslim personalities than has, at least thus far, been articulated for AKU. The decree says the language of instruction is to be Arabic (a point the university president does not make in his letter to de Monchaux) though other languages, of Islamic and non-Islamic nations may be used "wherever needed". There is a specific relationship to the Arab world and an intention "to give special attention to scientific research including Arab-Islamic affairs, in particular". Institutes for Islamic Architecture and Fine Arts, and for Astronomy and Space Sciences are planned. There is also something like a philosophical institute called the Bayt al-Hikmah Institute (House of Wisdom Institute) "which will be involved with the study of thoughts prevalent in the Islamic World", along with faculties of arts and sciences, Islamic jurisprudence and law, and of economics and public administration. The university aims to provide its students with an education "enabling them to fulfil any of the roles of teacher, preacher, researcher and scholar".

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