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Karekoona
Abdou
is an MSc candidate at The University of Dar es Salaam, Tanzania.
Her areas of interest are Muslim conflict in the developing world,
Muslim youth and their role in development, and sustainable community
economic development. abk_consult@yahoo.com;
karekoona.abdou@akest.org
African universities in national development: towards a
pedagogy of critical learning in a dependent society
Higher education institutions in Africa owe their origin to the
economic and political interests of the metropolitan powers. From
the beginning most institutions were Christian (missionary) based
with very few Muslim institutions. Following independence, African
governments embarked on ambitious plans to expand their educational
establishments at all levels, based on the uncritical belief of
their role in the promotion of massive social transformation. Institutions
of higher learning were in particular viewed as sources of new ideas
necessary to national development. In some African countries which
inherited no tertiary institutions of significance (e.g. Zambia
and Tanzania), efforts were hurriedly made to mobilise internal
funds as well as external assistance to set up universities. The
rapid expansion of higher education institutions was largely inspired
by the urgent desire to provide local labour to replace the departed
colonial administrators and technicians. However, environmentally-speaking,
after independence, this optimism held by education policymakers
and administrators seemed to have faded. Irrelevant curricula, rural-urban
migration, overcrowding in classrooms, widespread unemployment-
and school-based inequalities coupled with religious discrimination
have become more disturbing in the higher education scenes, the
major cause of which seems to be the lack of education reformers.
This paper reviews published data on the linkages between institutions
of higher learning (Makerere University, Uganda and The University
of Dar es Salaam, Tanzania) versus community/society development,
educational reforms since independence, implications of external
assistance and the influence of religion.
Kezban
Acar is Assistant Professor at Celal Bayar University,
Turkey. Her research interests are in national identity and the
image of the ‘other’. kacar45@yahoo.com
History
education in Turkey
Today, history education in public schools is mainly based on the
same official view of Turkish history that Mustafa Kemal Ataturk,
the founder of the Turkish Republic, framed in the early 1930s.
As the leader of a newly-founded nation, Ataturk sought different
ways to ‘popularise and legitimise’ the new regime,
the new idea of Turkish nationhood and their vatan (homeland). Rewriting
Turkish history was one of them. In fact, in his speech at the opening
of the Turkish Historical Society on 15 April 1931, Ataturk himself
emphasised that ‘writing history is as important as making
history. If the writer is not loyal to the truth,’ he maintained,
‘unchangeable reality takes a character which amazes humanity.’
In this paper, I will examine the teaching of history in terms of
curricula, teaching materials, academic staff, etc in 15 universities
(including state institutions and vaqfs, private universities) in
different parts of Turkey. I will compare state universities with
vaqfs and newly-founded universities with more established ones.
I will also conduct a survey among about 300 students in the department
of history at Celal Bayar University where I teach; I expect to
identify challenges or improvements to the teaching of history in
this particular university from students’ perspectives. Since
Celal Bayar University is one of 30 newly-founded universities,
through an examination of history teaching there, we can have an
idea of the teaching of history in many of these new universities.
This paper is part of a research project on history education that
includes a comparison of history education and teaching in Turkey
with those in some EU countries and the USA.
Zubeda
Kasim Ali is English Language Programme Manager at the
Aga Khan Education Services, Afghanistan. She has conducted English
language proficiency and teaching courses and workshops at national
and international levels. zubeda.kasimali@akdn-afg.org
Reconstruction
of higher education in Afghanistan through English language learning
In the emerging ‘knowledge economy’, nations that fail
at integrating a decent learning environment in higher education
will lag behind and may end up becoming virtual colonies to those
that succeed in this regard. This is the same in the context of
higher education in Afghanistan. It seems to reflect the system
which is in a virtual state of collapse. One reason for this deterioration
is that students’ English Language Proficiency (ELP) and Testing
(ELT) is not developed and at the same time methodology is lacking
among teachers. To improve English language proficiency and training
of students and teachers, efforts are being made by some Aga Khan
Development Network agencies. For example, the Aga Khan Educational
Service in Afghanistan, and the School of Nursing – Institute
of Health Sciences, Kabul Project, have developed English language
programmes to help teachers and students progress from initial academics
to professional life. The central goal of these programmes is to
familiarise students and the English faculty with utilitarian analytical
approaches. These are commonly associated with the rigors of ELP
to the faculty and students, and at the same time acquaint the faculty
with the trends and methodology of English language teaching. The
emphasis is on the analytical capacity of enhancing a Continuous
Improvement approach to English language programmes. The courses
also expose students to the current approaches in teaching and learning
English as a Second/Foreign Language. These programmes are the first
of their kind in Afghanistan. The paper will highlight the studies
conducted on the 3-Is – initiation, implementation and institutionalisation
– of the English language programmes functioning in the mentioned
AKDN institutions.
Abolfazl
Hedayati Azari teaches public health, school health, physics
and mathematics at the Payame Noor University in Tehran, Iran, where
he is also Director of the office of staffing. He has been involved
in teaching and higher education management since 1980. Hedayati@pnu.ac.ir
Studies
on the present obstacles to the materialisation of quality education:
the case of Payame Noor University, Iran
Certain obstacles in distance and open learning hinder the process
of quality education. If we define the concept of quality education
as a genuine education, which includes all aspects of knowledge,
understanding, application, analysis and evaluation, we will recognise
the necessity of providing essential grounds for the achievement
of quality education. It is true that factors like quality of study
materials and access to educational technologies can play important
roles in improving educational quality. But teachers, students,
education and office environment, and management also have effective
roles to play in this regard. In this paper, human resources, particularly
with respect to the administrative staff of a typically open and
distance teaching institution, the Payame Noor University (PNU),
will be studied. As well, the academics and administrative staff
of PNU will be discussed. To achieve this aim, that is the identification
of human resource obstacles to the academic and administrative sections,
the author uses his 25 years of educational and administrative experience
both in the University’s study centres and the headquarters.
It is argued that if academic and administrative staff expectations
materialised, that is, if they enjoy job satisfaction, progress,
security, sufficient salary, job benefits and good working relationships,
then it is possible to achieve quality education. Otherwise, decline
in the quality of education is inevitable. Job satisfaction in economic,
educational, cultural, social, political and psychological areas
will be scrutinised, relevant data will be provided, and certain
strategies for the promotion of faculty and management job satisfaction
will be presented. Reduction of educational quality, efficiency,
staff motivation and generally speaking, dissatisfaction or partial
satisfaction of staff indicates that they will not achieve their
job expectations. On the contrary, job satisfaction results in enhancement
of staff satisfaction and quality of education.
Winrich
Breipohl is Vice Dean of Medical Education/International
Affairs, and Head of the Department of Medical Education and Development,
Rheinische Friedrich-Wilhelms-Universität, Bonn, Germany.
breipohl@uni-bonn.de;
rblume.medid@uni-bonn.de
The
GAMA (German-African Medical Academy) Project
This contribution provides insight into the GAMA project, which
is one of the outcomes and further perspectives of long lasting
DAAD, EC and WHO supported ophthalmologic, paediatric and widely
facetted interdisciplinary, intercultural dialogue activities with
Muslim-dominated and other East African countries. GAMA is registered
as a non-profit initiative under German law and is considered a
starting point for the implementation of greater European-African
cooperation – the opening of specific East African Colleges,
and triggering similar initiatives in other European countries on
the basis of mutual trust and fairness. GAMA is helping to bridge
European-African gaps in tertiary education, research, vocational
training, technical and biodiversity utilisation in the health sector
by widely facetted and sustainably driven interdisciplinary cooperation
with mutual dedication and benefit for the countries, institutions
and people involved. Policy parameters are, long term: the One World
principle; medium term: to help implement the Millennium Development
Goals of the UNO, also taken up by the EC and respective national
agencies; short term: individual projects supporting the former
two features. Areas are integrated by careful interdisciplinary
and intercultural dialogue. Consequently major associated questions
are dealt with as well are cultural traditions, human rights, the
role of women in society, topics of durable access to energy, and
water and waste disposal. Intimate cooperation with other European
networks complements this policy. All activities are to secure lasting
consolidation of the GAMA mission and are integrated into the follow-up
to Bologna’s EC vision for Europe and beyond. Current activities
and individual project priorities will be defined together with
deadlines ahead and invitations to merge one or other partner projects
of GAMA, and especially the EC-Thematic network ERIC (European Resources
in Intercultural Communication, Köln and Bonn), Universities
for Health (Magdeburg) and Towards Unity for Health (Maastricht).
Serdar
M. Degirmencioglu is Associate Professor at the Department
of Psychology at Istanbul Bilgi University, Turkey. He is also the
Coordinator for Children’s Rights Coalition of Turkey and
leads the Public Achievement initiative in Turkey. serdard@bilgi.edu.tr
Recasting
the role of students in higher learning in developing countries
There is an obvious gap in the dominant conceptualisation of the
role of higher learning in developing countries as to how action,
engagement and personal involvement matter for genuine learning
and development. There is a parallel gap in social policy-making,
often modelled after welfare states, where there is an overemphasis
on service delivery and a neglect of the significance of action
and engagement for human development. The problematic status of
action is particularly evident in research, practice and policy
pertaining to young people, where young people are not construed
as contributors, collaborators and problem-solvers. Even in societies
where democratic traditions are strong, young people are given very
few chances of engaging in meaningful public action. Moreover, this
lack of participation often weakens public institutions, including
the very institutions that are framed as engines of development
– namely schools. The central argument of this paper is that
public institutions and schools in particular, are not solely the
domain of trained adult professionals. Schools at all levels (primary,
secondary, higher) with their problems as well as purported functions
(e.g. genuine learning) are first and foremost an issue for students
– who always outnumber professionals – and hence students
should be involved in school processes. This is particularly true
for institutions of higher learning, which can easily become elitist,
technocratic institutions in the absence of an emphasis on governance
and civic engagement. When institutions of higher learning make
a commitment to civic learning, the role of the student changes
and intrinsic motivation emerges. A model of such institutional
engagement (Public Achievement) is presented with examples of university
students working on public issues in Turkey and elsewhere. This
paper also highlights, based on studies from various disciplines
on youth participation and engagement, the links between different
types of participation and psychological well-being and agency,
and other significant indicators.
Marina
Dodigovic is Assistant Professor of English and TESOL at
the American University of Sharjah in the UAE. Her research interests
include Computer Assisted Language Learning, academic English and
the analysis of learner needs.
mdodigovic@ausharjah.edu
Language
and content in higher education – a Gulf case study
The United Arab Emirates is a country currently teeming with opportunities
to contribute to the development of its higher education. A large
number of public and private tertiary institutions have emerged
in the past 10 years, each cultivating a distinct profile of its
own and catering to a different group of UAE citizens or residents.
However, one thing they all have in common is the reliance on British
or American traditions in the shaping of their structures and curricula.
This paper poses the question: should form and content be transplanted
directly from one culture to another? It examines the repercussions
on its writing programme of introducing the undiluted American liberal
education approach into the general education programme at one UAE
institution. Linguistic studies of the readings and student writing
in this programme are compared to those in other programmes at the
same institution, which are influenced by an outcomes-based principle.
In terms of potential for both language acquisition and content
learning, outcomes-based courses seem to be both better adjusted
to, and better accepted by, the respective student population. This
may be due to the fact that outcomes-based instruction carries an
inbuilt awareness of the target learner population and their diversified
needs, whereas liberal education seems to set the same goals for
both those who can reach them and those who fall short. Nevertheless,
if the UAE community sees an inherent value in understanding the
classics (e.g. The Iliad), the path it must take toward the appreciation
of this work by its tertiary students should be very different to
that taken by similar institutions in the UK and USA that is being
more in sync with what local students can relate to.
Lorna
Jean Edmonds is Director of Research Services, Queen’s
University, Kingston, Canada, where she is responsible for leading
and directing the Office of Research Services, serving all sectors
of the university and related research sectors of the hospital/health
sciences community.
edmondlj@post.queensu.ca
Malcolm
Peat is Professor of Rehabilitation and Executive Director
of the International Centre for the Advancement of Community Based
Rehabilitation within the Faculty of Health Sciences, Queen’s
University, Kingston, Canada. icacbr@post.queensu.ca
Community-based
rehabilitation as a strategy in conflict resolution and post-conflict
reconstruction in Bosnia-Herzegovina
The International Centre for the Advancement of Community Based
Rehabilitation (ICACBR) Queen’s University, Canada, at the
request of the Government of Bosnia-Herzegovina and with the support
of the government of Canada initiated the development in Sarajevo
of Community Based Rehabilitation (CBR) in 1993 and then expanded
to four other communities in the Federation of Bosnia-Herzegovina
(FBiH) in 1995. The project was extended to 2001 and provided services
for war victims and disabled people in a country devastated by conflict.
This successful approach to CBR development became the core component
of the post-war reconstruction of rehabilitation services for disabled
people. Over $12 million USD in funding was coordinated by the World
Bank in which ICACBR was the implementing agency for the education
and policy programme leading to the development of a national network
of 38 CBR centres and their formal establishment within the post-war
primary health care system. This initiative was a partnership between
the Ministry of Health in FBiH, community rehabilitation personnel,
consumers and ICACBR. The network of CBR centres serve between 40,000
to 60,000 people annually. This CBR network became a model for the
Balkans and similar initiatives were established in Croatia, Kosovo
and Republika Srpska of BiH. Mainstreaming CBR in BiH is an example
where the needs of disabled people were a development priority.
Research was conducted to evaluate this CBR development experience
and conceptualise a model for its further development. The research
demonstrated that unlike the pre-war environment, disabled people
are increasingly active members of the community. CBR was contributing
to community development and the empowerment of disabled people
and their families through the citizenship model of development.
The significance is that the needs of disabled people were ‘targeted’
and CBR was ‘mainstreamed’ in the primary health care
system creating opportunities for sustainability, peace and stability.
Adnan
El Amine is Professor at the Lebanese University, and President
of the Lebanese Association for Educational Studies. His research
interests are sociology of education, educational planning, and
educational systems assessment. laes@cyberia.net.lb
Quality
assurance in Arab countries
At present, Arab countries count around 250 universities (in addition
to about 500 other higher education institutions) in which are enrolled
about 6 million students. In the last decade, quality assurance
movements have begun to take shape, with efforts being exerted at
both the level of the state, and that of the universities themselves.
Moreover, recent efforts have been witnessed at the regional level,
whereby Arab institutions of higher education are attempting to
develop a certain form of regional agency for accreditation and
quality assurance. This paper will summarise these quality assurance
efforts in its introduction. The focus subsequently, will be on
presenting and discussing the results of a survey the author conducted
recently on Arab universities (to which 160 of the 250 universities
responded). The survey questionnaire covers general information
about the university (profile, number of students and faculty, centres,
periodicals, etc) as well as a description of the university’s
quality enhancement and quality assurance activities. The activities
are classified by type (according to their topics, domain, targets,
duration, etc), and are analysed according to a set of variables
(such as country, type of university, parties involved from within
and outside the university). The survey of Arab universities was
part of a study that was supported by the UNESCO Regional Office
for Education in the Arab states, the Association of Arab Universities,
and the Ford Foundation.
Bennacer
El Bouazzati has taught epistemology, logic and the history
of scientific ideas at the Department of Philosophy, Sociology and
Psychology, Mohamed V University, Rabat, since 1980. His academic
interests centre on the history of scientific ideas from the 9th
to the 15th centuries. el.bouazzati@menara.ma
The
uses of reform in the Moroccan university
In Morocco, university reforms always come late and take the form
of administrative decisions devoid of academic fecundity. It can
be said, without exaggeration that our university has and continues
to operate in an unhealthy atmosphere. Since its creation in 1958
the Moroccan university has suffered from political conflicts, in
the sense that political tendencies have tried to use faculty members
and students for ideological aims. On the other hand, the government
has done everything in order to control the university intellectually
and politically and to turn it into a sterile body without academic
activity. Our university witnessed reforms in 1970, 1976 and 1980,
but without any positive academic development; now it is experiencing
a more apparently radical reform. Will this latest reform be fruitful?
Nobody can give us a sound answer. But, taking account of daily
experiences in university, and considering what the professors report,
this reform appears to be only bureaucratic and will not have positive
results: the promotion of professors is based on length of service,
not on scientific creativity; the level of lecturers does not progress;
even those who return with degrees from Western universities do
not continue doing research because they do not find anything interesting
to read and no project on which to elaborate. Since 1958 a very
small number of periodicals and books have been purchased by the
university libraries. In the last decade, recent publications in
every field are not to be found. Worse, books that were once there
in the 1970s have been lost! The disciplines taught at the Faculty
of Letters have not substantially changed for decades; likewise
at the Faculty of Law. Many disciplines and subjects are inexistent;
for example: history of science, history of art, musicology, anthropology,
history of law, etc. Psychological and sociological research is
very poor and superficial.
Hmida
Ennaifer teaches dogma and theology at the Faculty of Muslim
Theology, Zitouna University, Tunis, Tunisia. His interests also
focus on modern Islamic thought and Islamo-Christian dialogue; he
is President of the Groupe de Recherche Islamo-Chrétien.
hmida.ennaifer@laposte.net
Zitouna
University and Al-Qarawiyyin University: what modernity for the
Maghreb?
This paper studies the series of reforms instituted in modern times
by two of the most important and prestigious North African universities.
Both the University of Zitouna in Tunis, Tunisia and Al-Qarawiyyin
University in Fez, Morocco, were encouraged from the end of the
19th century to introduce changes to their curricula, programmes,
organisation and educational methods. This drive to modernise picked
up momentum at the end of WWII – with more or less success.
At the dawn of the third millennium, it appears that institutions
of traditional learning require further reforms, even a remodelling.
From this starting point we can focus on fundamental questions related
to the present challenge to this Muslim region which neighbours
Europe. Herein lies the dilemma facing the elites of the Muslim
world – divided between the need to forge an identity derived
from their past and the desire to engage with modernity at the risk
of cultural destitution. This problematic raises a number of questions
relating to traditional education: in what spirit should the young
be educated? What ideas pertaining to their history and its values
should they be presented with? What sense of their history and development
in the world around them can they be offered? It is from this vantage
point that the future of higher education and of Muslim elites can
be contemplated.
Shaniff
Esmail is Associate Professor at the Department of Occupational
Therapy, University of Alberta and a doctoral student at the Department
of Human Ecology, Family Studies, University of Alberta. Shaniff.esmail@ualberta.ca
E.
Sharon Brintnell is Director of the Occupational Performance
Analysis Unit at the University of Alberta. She was the project
director of an initiative which collaborated with the Ministry of
Health, Republic Indonesia, to introduce the occupational therapy
profession.
sharon.brintnell@ualberta.ca
Tri
Budi Santoso is Head of the Occupational Therapy programme;
Bambang Kuncoro is President of the Indonesian Occupational Therapy
Association; Khomarun is in charge of academic field work for the
programme. They are all practicing clinicians and members of the
faculty of Sukarta Health Polytechnic, Solo RI.
Influencing
higher education in the health care profession – an Indonesian
experience
Educational institutions in developing countries that offer professional
programmes can provide more than increased access to higher standards
of living. By embedding interactive learning strategies in the curriculum
delivery process, students not only learn about empowerment and
leadership but are also supported in their own transition from passive
learner to problem-solver and innovator. These professional roles
are essential to facilitating social change and/or shaping community
responses to the needs of special populations (persons with disability
and women). Educational standards established by international professional
organisations provide a form of quality assurance by helping to
shape the educational experience and by raising the programme expectations
and requirements to receive international recognition. The World
Federation of Occupational Therapists (WFOT) first established minimum
standards for educational curricula in 1955 and has since influenced
the quality of occupational therapy (OT) education for close to
50 years. Without any financial awards, WFOT supported fledgling
programmes through a consultative model delivered through correspondence
and other low cost strategies in over 40 developing countries. This
presentation is based on 10-years’ experience of developing
an occupational therapy educational programme in Indonesia. It presents
the strategies used to ensure cultural sensitivity and diversity,
sustainability and succession in a developing Muslim country. It
describes a top-down/bottom-up approach used to develop the programme
and plan for the graduates’ introduction into the health care
system, including: identifying the key players, networks and professional
relationships in government and service sectors required to achieve
consensus on the programmes’ design and content; the achievements
of the hand-picked inaugural teaching staff; and the impact of the
programme on other allied health programmes. Whether this approach
to design and implement a professional educational programme is
transferable to other domains and Muslim countries is open for discussion.
Ahmet
O. Evin is founding Dean of the Faculty of Arts and Social
Sciences at Sabancı University, Turkey, a private institution
of higher learning, where he also teaches. He is currently an Alexander
Onassis Fellow at the Hellenic Foundation for European and Foreign
Policy in Athens.
aevin@sabanciuniv.edu
The
challenge of private investment in higher education: building universities
for developing human capital
The new private foundation universities in Turkey represent a significant
departure from the customary way of providing higher education through
publicly funded state institutions. There are particular reasons
why higher education has begun attracting substantial funding from
private sources in Turkey: increased demand for university education,
as a result of both demographic and developmental factors, could
not be met by public funds alone; the state’s monopoly on
providing higher education was brought to an end by the 1982 constitution;
setting-up universities became by far the most prestigious form
of philanthropy for the rising bourgeoisie. As a result, by 2004
no less than 24 private universities were founded in Turkey, representing
nearly one-third of the total. There are also a number of lessons,
pertinent to higher education in general as well as in the developing
countries in particular, that can be drawn from the Turkish case.
To what extent, for example, do the private foundation universities
support original research and thus contribute to generating knowledge
rather than merely providing instruction? Do they merely respond
to the demand among young people to obtain university degrees or
do they make an effort to contribute to the improvement of education
in the country or region? What are their means of governance and
quality control to ensure sustainability? In other words, how effectively
do (and can) private institutions address the crucial need for developing
human capital? Drawing on my own experience as part of a team that
designed and established a new foundation university in Istanbul,
I propose to examine the challenges facing higher education today
and how private institutions might respond effectively to these
challenges. Particularly in developing countries where new institutions
have the potential to become much needed catalysts for change, they
nevertheless face serious resistance to innovation that arises both
from the characteristic conservatism of higher educational institutions
themselves and from resistance inherent in any society to significant
institutional changes. In the Turkish case, for example, some of
the new foundation universities have seized upon the opportunity
to introduce innovations and to make a significant contribution
to research, scholarship, and the improvement of the quality of
instruction. But they have experienced serious constraints resulting
from a lack of a commitment to change, absence in Turkey of a tradition
of collegial competition, low expectations of constituents, lack
of adequate resources, and the rigidity of the regulatory environment.
In light of the foregoing considerations, I shall address three
interrelated issues in my talk. The first concerns the reasons for
the emergence of private universities in Turkey, means of their
financing, governance as well as their legal basis and relation
to the central regulatory agency (High Board of Education). The
second will focus on the philosophy, mission, and curriculum design
of Sabancı University and how these features of the new university
compare with those of similar institutions in the United States
and other countries. Thirdly I will argue that arts and humanities
courses constitute indispensable parts of any rigorous core curriculum.
Nidhal
Guessoum is Associate Professor of Physics at the American
University of Sharjah (AUS) in the UAE. He has taught at institutions
of higher learning in Algeria, Kuwait and the UAE and headed physics
departments both in Algeria and at the AUS. nguessoum@ausharjah.edu
Sofiane
Sahraoui is Associate Professor of Management Information
Systems at the AUS. His interest in educational administration follows
experiences as department chair at the UAE and his 11 years of teaching
experience.
ssahraoui@aus.ac.ae
The
role and impact of American universities in the Arab world
Higher education in the Arab world has witnessed two important developments
in the past decade: a steady decline in the quality of the education
offered by Arab institutions, and the accelerating proliferation
of American universities (Al-Akhawayn, Morocco; AU Dubai; AU Sharjah;
AU Kuwait; Cornell; Virginia commonwealth; Texas A&M; Carnegie-Melon
branches in Qatar; etc). The public widely believes, as application
numbers show, that American universities provide a higher standard
of learning than what is otherwise available. American institutions,
however, also bring with them a suite of important traditions and
practices, e.g. the emphasis on general/liberal education, the development
of critical thinking and analysis, transparency in administrative
procedures in every area (student assessment, faculty evaluation,
hiring process, budget handling, etc), and the principle of shared
governance, which has the potential of training students, faculty
and staff in the culture of democracy and free speech. Some segments
of Arab society, nevertheless, object to the presence of such ‘foreign
bodies’, seeing in them a ‘cultural invasion’
that affects the beliefs and behaviour of those who attend them.
Our aim in this paper is to present a preliminary exploration of
the extent to which such universities are fulfilling these roles,
focusing particularly on the AU Sharjah but considering the past
experiences of AU Beirut and AU Cairo. We have conducted a series
of written interviews with faculty and officials who have substantial
experience with these universities. We have also used some objective
measures relative to admission standards and student performance
(GPA averages, etc) at the AU Sharjah. By presenting our preliminary
findings and conclusions we expound some personal thoughts on how
we define an ‘American university’ and how we imagine
its role in the Arab world in these times (programmes it must conduct,
interfacing with local institutions and communities, etc).
Nelofer
Halai is Associate Professor at Aga Khan University–Institute
for Educational Development where she is developing the PhD programme
in Education (which admitted its first cohort in October 2004).
nelofer.halai@aku.edu
Internal
and external quality assurance measures for a doctoral programme
in education: a model from Pakistan
There is an overt and public recognition that improving the quality
of higher education is of great importance for the 100 or more universities/degree
awarding institutes both in the public and the private sectors in
Pakistan. All universities in Pakistan undergo a financial audit
every year, but the tradition of internal or external academic audit
to ensure quality is non-existent. This is at least partly due to
the lack of explicitly articulated quality assurance measures embedded
within academic policies. The Aga Khan University (AKU) is an exception
as it adheres to stringent quality assurance processes in all its
programmes. This paper focuses on postgraduate programmes, in particular
the PhD in Education being offered by AKU through its Institute
for Educational Development (AKU– IED). It intends to articulate
both the internal and external measures for quality assurance built
into the programme. The quality of a university is dependent on
the quality of the faculty who teach, conduct research and interact
with students, the curricula developed and the learning resources
available, the administrative support and infrastructure, the environment
in which these various elements interact and finally the quality
of the students admitted to its programmes. The last, that is the
quality of applicants, is dependent on the first three and require
long-term planning and commitment. Internal quality assurance is
established through continuous faculty and resource development,
evolving a research culture, developing partnerships and linkages
with key institutions inside and outside Pakistan, and a transparent
and rigorous admission processes based on merit, self-assessment
and accountability through management structures. More recently,
external quality assurance measures are becoming essential in higher
education all over the world; the main purposes being accountability,
compliance and improvement. In the PhD programme external quality
assurance is being established through a peer review process involving
faculty from universities outside. This paper discusses both internal
and external measures taken to assure the quality of the programme,
as well as some of the dilemmas and challenges faced in implementing
these quality assurance measures in Pakistan.
Naheed
Haleem is a Reader in Education at Aligarh Muslim University
(AMU). She has an MA in English from Patna University, India, and
an MA in Education from AMU, where she completed her PhD on teacher
attitudes towards creative children. asifha21@hotmail.com
A
study of gender bias of Muslim girls in college education in southern
India
The present study was designed to examine the level of college education
among Muslim girls in the region of southern India. It also aims
to determine factors associated with gender bias such as the influence
of religion, traditional values, as well as aims and aspirations
of the community, which lead to non-enrolment in colleges, or dropping
out of college midstream. This study was carried out in the Malabar
region, where a sample of 100 parents from amongst the Muslim community
was interviewed. It was found that the community still continues
to practice traditional customs and rituals – one of them
is attaching top priority to finding marriage matches for their
daughters – in preference to educating them, making them self-sufficient,
professionally competent and financially independent. Education
to these parents has no real significance. Another important finding
relates to the subordination of womenfolk in the household. Several
parents did give due importance to the academic achievements of
their daughters, yet it was expected that when exigencies arise,
that girls would sacrifice their desires and demands at the altar
for the greater objective of re-allocation of resources for the
education of male siblings, rather than sharing the resources in
equitable measure amongst all children. Apparently, daughters’
economic necessity and occupation have no role to play in reaching
these decisions. Families with qualified fathers seem to offer greater
attention to their daughter’s education. The purdah system
is intrinsically embedded in the rural belt, but finds little support
in urban settings. However, the wearing of the veil, and the practice
of visiting/moving around with a chaperone, preferably a female
or a brother/close relative, is a common sight and also insisted
upon by elders in rural-urban areas. The income of parents is directly
related to their daughters’ education level and accomplishments
(invariably). Religious education is a necessity. Children, including
girls, are put in for three to five years of compulsory religious
instruction, either at home or in facilities available in mosques/madrasas.
For higher education, especially in rural areas, parents are against
co-education.
Ursula
Hartig has been Project Manager of Student-Projects in
Mexico and Kabul at the Technical University of Berlin (TUB) since
2001. She has also worked as researcher and lecturer for the Habitat
Unit at TUB, where her doctorate is also in process. ursula.hartig@tu-berlin.de
Pilot-project
students building in Kabul: chances for joint qualification
This paper is about the project undertaken by the Technical University
of Berlin (TUB), Germany, and Kabul University, Afghanistan, from
May to October 2003, for the design and rebuilding of the Suuria
Girls High School and a students’ meeting centre on the Campus
of Kabul University. In a unique relationship between internationality,
interdisciplinary and applied studies, this project was developed
at TUB, with the aid of scientists and students from both institutions.
In a two- month construction period in Kabul, female and male students
of both universities cooperated in building parts of the school,
redesigning the students’ meeting centre and redesigning and
rebuilding the classrooms. The building process was supplemented
with workshops on civil engineering, design, waste and water management
and computer-aided design. The workshops were held by both students
and staff from the TUB. The results were exhibited at the end of
the project by the Afghan and German students on Kabul University’s
campus. Apart from the condensed academic knowledge, which was compiled
in the shortest of time, the experience of implementing this knowledge
in a practical, tangible way was also part of the project. Of the
important results, one was to help in rehabilitating Afghan society;
the other was the unique and immeasurable success of mutual learning
between cultures through joint working, joint learning and joint
living. This paper will present an example of both teaching and
studying that does not consist of a one-way technical transfer from
north-western to south-eastern countries, nor a brain drain of the
south-eastern countries, but the use of resources from both with
the aim of achieving a real, tangible, visible contribution to the
development of the countries involved. The questions, problems and
challenges that arose during this experimental project should not
only be named but also discussed.
Jeremy
Henzell-Thomas is Director of the Book Foundation, a British
charity engaged in the publication of key texts of Islamic spirituality,
the development of resources for Islamic education, and the sponsorship
of Islamic art. He has worked at many levels in education both in
the UK and overseas. jeremyhthomas@aol.com
Quantity
masquerading as quality: reviving an authentic notion of qualitative
education
This paper will address some key issues raised in two of the proposed
sub-themes for this conference. Firstly, under academic issues:
Teaching and learning. It will explore the vital importance of a
liberal education which meets aesthetic and ethical needs at a time
when educational agenda are increasingly dominated by utilitarian
and technological concerns serving national, economic and developmental
goals. It will go further in suggesting that an authentic vision
of a truly humane education must embrace not only due regard for
the social sciences and humanities – and the benefits they
bring by fostering critical and creative thinking, aesthetic development
and ethical values – but must also encompass the superordinate
level of spiritual development based on an understanding of what
it means to be fully human. It will also suggest that far from being
a luxury which developing countries cannot afford, the need for
such principled education is now, more than ever, necessary in order
to ensure the survival of the higher-order cognitive, affective,
moral and spiritual faculties which traditional and faith-based
communities, as well as the best holistic educational practice,
have always tried to keep alive and to transmit. Such communities
are the ground of what truly constitutes a civilisation, and its
teachers are pre-eminently its guardians. Quality assurance. It
will explore the related issue of how the search for quality needs
to revive the notion of quality itself, as opposed to the quantitative
evaluative approaches derived from the materialistic culture of
scientism and target-driven ‘techno-management’ which
reduces human beings to conforming and performing cogs in the industrial
machine. Finally, focusing on specifically Muslim contexts, it will
be argued that by reclaiming the finest elements of the Islamic
tradition, Muslim educators can be at the forefront of a re-ensouling
educational process which will not only preserve for their own communities
the qualities and virtues associated with being an authentic Muslim
but also contribute to their rediscovery as universal human values
in a globalised world increasingly oppressed by the ‘reign
of quantity’. Islamic civilisation has more to offer the world
than apologetic imitations of the worst aspects of utilitarian education
systems.
Elizabeth
Dean Hermann is Professor of Landscape Architecture, Urban
Design and Islamic Architectural History at the Rhode Island School
of Design, USA. Since 2003 she has served as senior advisor for
master planning and design of the new Asian University for Women
to be built in Chittagong, Bangladesh.
ehermann@risd.edu; elizabeth_hermann@brown.edu
A
women’s university in Bangladesh
In the spring of 2003, the Rhode Island School of Design and the
Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) were asked by the Asian
University for Women Support Foundation in New York City to develop
a conceptual master plan for a new institution of higher learning
to be built in Chittagong, Bangladesh. The Asian University for
Women (AUW) is a unique multinational venture that has its origins
in the World Bank/UNESCO Task Force on Higher Education in the Developing
World (1999). Many of those involved in writing this report chose
to put their conclusions toward action when they proposed a new
university to address issues of gender inequity in higher education
in South and South East Asia. Bangladesh was chosen as the host
country due to the relative stability and secularism of its government.
At the same time, Bangladesh has one of the worse records of female
enrolment at the university level – 24 per cent of total enrolment;
it has an average per capita income of $277 a year, no public system
of student loans, and it suffers from a lack of role models within
academia – only 4 per cent of university faculty are female.
This paper will present the background and vision of the AUW effort,
which I have been involved with for the past two years, and will
present the issues and dilemmas that came to light during the planning
and design process of a comprehensive master plan for the campus.
The underlying questions will be: what should be the physical framework
within which higher education takes place in the developing world
today, in particular in Muslim societies? And, if it is agreed that
single-sex institutions are needed or desired due to prevailing
social or religious norms, while at the same time a central part
of the institutional mission is to have women assume leadership
roles in the larger society, then how can the physical layout and
design of the campus support or resolve such seemingly conflicting
ideas?
Toufic
El-Houri is one of the founders of the Islamic Centre for
Education, a waqf which controls the Imam Ouzai College of Islamic
Studies, the Islamic Faculty of Business Administration, and other
institutions. He has served on the executive boards of the Federation
of the Universities of the Muslim World.
houri@wakf.org
The
Imam Ouzai College of Islamic Studies
In 1979, the need to establish a new university to advance and develop
Islamic studies in a free atmosphere was acutely felt after two
important political events took place in the Middle East: the signing
of the Camp David agreement between Egypt and Israel, and the Iranian
Islamic Revolution in 1979. Beirut, Lebanon, was chosen as the place
to found the Imam Ouzai College of Islamic Studies due to the academic
liberty Lebanon enjoys. The teaching programmes are non-traditional,
students must take: traditional religious subjects (Quran, Hadith,
Dogma, Fikh, etc); related subjects (Arabic language, history, geography,
ethics, comparative religion, Sufism, etc); modern thought (political
science, economics, pedagogy, development studies, east-west confrontation,
etc) and an oriental language and a European language. Students
holding a high school certificate (literary, scientific, technical,
religious, etc) can join the BA programme. Any university or similar
institution graduate, no matter what their specialisation, can join
the MA programme. Every graduate student must take a number of courses
tailored to balance their religious knowledge and modern world knowledge
before starting their thesis. A good research library was established,
to cater for student needs, with a good collection of databases,
over 100,000 books and 1,800 running periodicals. A number of study
centres help outreach students. These are currently operating in
Syria, Kuwait, the United Arab Emirates and Austria. Degrees are
recognised worldwide. A sister college, the Islamic College of Business
Administration, was established in 1987 and offers courses in finance,
banking, economics and business administration from both an Islamic
and non-Islamic perspective. The Imam Ouzai College of Islamic Studies
leads the reunion of religious university colleges in Lebanon (14
in number, belonging to the different Muslim and Christian sects).
By the end of 2004, over 160 MA degrees and over 60 PhDs were awarded,
as well as around 1000 BA degrees. The current student body count
is about 2500 (male and female, 50 nationalities). This is in short
the description of a non-traditional non-conventional university.
Rozina
Karmaliani is Assistant Professor and Director of the MScN
and BSc programmes at Aga Khan University School of Nursing and
Community Health Sciences. Her research interests are in reproductive
health, health systems development and programme evaluation.
rozina.karmaliani@aku.edu
Khairulnissa
Ajani is Instructor at Aga Khan University School of Nursing.
khairulnissa.ajani@aku.edu
Shahzad
Mithani is Assistant Professor at Aga Khan University Institute
of Educational Development. shahzad.mithani@aku.edu
Challenges
of teaching and learning in higher education: experience from developing
country context
There is a great realisation among institutions of higher education
in developing countries to focus on ‘learning domains’
dove-tailed with specific pedagogical notions. This shift in teaching
and learning has had a tremendous effect on individuals’ overall
development. The Aga Khan University School of Nursing (AKU–SON)
provides higher education to women in the nursing profession and
therefore has been at the cutting edge of this evolving practice.
This paper will attempt to provide an illustrative account of the
curriculum development practices and teaching and learning process
that have engaged students in becoming critical consumers of knowledge.
In Pakistan, only 2.6 per cent of 17 to 23 years-old have the opportunity
to pursue higher education studies (Bureau of Statistics, Government
of Sindh 2003-2004), thus posing a challenge to teachers and students
in terms of access and quality. AKU–SON, recognising this
limitation, caters to those students who come from a diversity of
geographical and ethnic backgrounds by introducing them initially
to a preparatory programme before their entry into the regular programme.
Based on the works of Lev Vygotsky on language and thought, the
curriculum offers English language courses throughout, for students
to develop expressions. Nursing curriculum also integrates science
and humanities courses which provide a holistic learning approach
to the students. Moreover, these courses are taught using a variety
of teaching-learning strategies to enable learning through affective,
psychomotor and cognitive domains. This paper will share current
and evolving teaching and learning methodologies, issues related
to espoused, enacted and hidden curriculum, and observations related
to adapting the western model of teaching-learning versus developing
relevant indigenous approaches which have proven to be challenging
for faculty to address. This, in the context of a developing country
is a formidable task, but achievable, and should certainly not be
confined to the classrooms of privileged societies.
Jan-e-Alam
Khaki is Senior Instructor at Aga Khan University–Institute
for Educational Development, Karachi, Pakistan. His research interests
include school management and leadership. janealam.khaki@aku.edu
Transforming
teacher education: AKU–IED
This presentation discusses the interventions since 1993 of Aga
Khan University’s Institute for Educational Development (AKU–IED)
in the field of higher education, with specific focus on educational
development and teacher education. It discusses the various programmes,
and their philosophies and strategies that have been initiated to
raise the standard of education in many developing counties with
an overwhelming majority of Muslim populations. AKU–IED has
focused on a number of key areas including preparing elite teacher
educator cadres called ‘professional development teachers’
(PDTs) as teacher educators and mentors. The university attracts
candidates from several developing countries. The Institute has
adopted a multi-pronged approach to the development of education
with special focus on developing countries. The programmes are open
to governmental, non governmental (NGO sponsored schools), community
and individually-owned schools. The programme also provides opportunities
for the professional development of teachers, head teachers and
education managers, such as district officers. The curricula of
the programmes have been designed after careful examination of approaches
to teaching and learning based on sound pedagogical and andragogical
principles that are culturally sensitive, and educationally innovative.
These programmes have established a credibility capital for themselves
which has prompted many provincial and federal governments for example,
in Pakistan, to seek support from AKU–IED in many areas of
education, including curriculum development, teacher education,
leadership development and research activity. AKU–IED is now
a dialogue partner of the Government of Pakistan, helping in many
areas like teacher education and leadership development. The main
focus of the programmes is to encourage a culture of critical thinking
and reflective practice both at the classroom level and at the level
of teacher education, within the given contexts of the developing
counties. AKU–IED envisions a goal that leads to the upgrading
of both teacher education and curricular innovation in many developing
counties beset as they are currently with many chronic problems.
Atif
Rahim Khan is at the Human Resources Development Centre,
University of the Punjab, Lahore, Pakistan. atif@khan.name
The
role of universities in the sustainable development of Pakistan:
an explorative, adaptive and innovative knowledge approach
Pakistan has to meet the challenges of sustainable development in
the global context and it needs to enlarge its share in global competition.
To progress, it needs to identify and concentrate on means of development.
This paper avers that the prime means for sustainable development
in the global context is to increase the relative advantage of Pakistan
by capitalising on knowledge exploration, adaptation and innovation
through universities rather than through blindsided frontierless
knowledge adoption. Universities in Pakistan have a critical role
to play in the quest for unified, focused and defined development
based on knowledge aligned with and derived from the teachings of
Islam, local culture, traditions, resources, social patterns and
circumstances. This paper suggests three major concentrations. First
that universities need to accumulate and retain knowledge and resources
critical to knowledge-driven development. Practices yielding absorption
from other sectors of society and reverse brain drain need to be
engaged in. Second, that human resources in these institutions need
to be motivated, developed and managed, cognisant of the temporal,
societal, regional and global environments. Third, that linkages
between universities and the above segments of society need to be
strengthened. These linkages need to be better devised, developed
and managed to disseminate knowledge and thus to cultivate individuals
as well as institutions. This paper relies on both secondary and
primary data, with an emphasis on the former through research literature
and the Higher Education Commission of Pakistan’s records.
Primary data is derived from proprietary research involving universities
in Pakistan and selected representatives from the segments of society
identified. The paper will be presented in four parts. Firstly,
an introduction to the state of universities and sustainable development
in Pakistan. Next a theoretical model, culturally-specific to Pakistan.
This will link sustainable development with knowledge exploration,
adaptation and innovation, as opposed to knowledge adoption. Thirdly,
the qualitative and quantitative factors that influence the above
link will be identified and studied. And finally, the paper will
conclude with the delineation of best practices for Pakistan and
for other Muslim or developing countries sharing similarities with
it.
Anil
Khamis is Lecturer in Education and International Development
course leader of the MA in Education and International Development,
Institute of Education, University of London. He is interested in
school improvement, education and development. a.khamis@ioe.ac.uk
Education
and partnerships – meeting the educational needs of Muslim
countries
The notion of partnerships for educational provision and improvement
has now wide currency in international development discourse. Organisations
such as the World Bank, bilateral aid agencies, and international
development agencies all promote partnerships with local and national
governments, non-governmental agencies, and educational providers
in developing countries or low and middle-income countries –
many of which happen to represent majority or significant Muslim
communities. This paper will consider the nature of these partnerships
and illustrate various notions, ideologies, and potentials of partnership
arrangements; illustrations to support the theoretical positions
outlined will be obtained from a review of a new initiative: the
provision of a Master’s degree programme for the University
of London that is being delivered in ‘partnership’ with
Aga Khan University’s Institute for Educational Development
with support from the Commonwealth Scholarship Commission (funded
by DFID). The intent of the initiative is to promote the training
of human resources in the area of education and development, faculty
exchange and sharing of expertise, and unleashing collaborative
research potential. The initiative, in this instance, is dependent
on the availability of distance/on-line learning technology, a tertiary
educational institution with complementary competencies in education,
research and development, and a long-standing relationship between
the two institutions – both in terms of personnel and programmatic
collaboration. The paper will conclude by drawing attention to what
is deemed to be the current period of ‘globalisation’
of the world economy and the ongoing alignment of qualifications,
competencies and certification. This includes the impact this has
on education in Muslim societies, issues and challenges of meeting
and responding to local (Muslim) aspirations as they are encoded
in educational curricula, and the transformative potential that
is felt to be implicit in the era of globalisation.
Sameen
Ahmed Khan is Senior Lecturer at the Middle East College
of Information Technology, Muscat, Oman. He has a PhD in Physics
from the Institute of Mathematical Science, Chennai, India. Besides
physics, he has a keen interest in science for development. rohelakhan@yahoo.com
Need
to create regional science centres in developing countries
This paper addresses the theme of international science collaborations,
citing examples of European institutions. International science
institutions played a significant role in the rebuilding of Europe
after WWII. Notable among these is the European Laboratory for Particle
Physics (CERN) in Geneva. Founded in 1954, CERN was one of Europe’s
first joint ventures and now includes 20 member states. Scientific
collaboration beyond national boundaries has been a force for peace
during the cold war. The progress of the upcoming international
science centre in Jordan, known by the epic acronym SESAME (Synchrotron-light
for Experimental Science and Applications in the Middle East), is
described briefly. Very much like CERN, SESAME is under the very
valuable political umbrella of UNESCO and is expected to promote
science and foster international cooperation. Examples of European
institutions are examined from the perspective of developing countries.
Proposals to create regional science centres in the developing countries
are presented; the question of the renaissance of science in Islamic
countries will also be addressed.
Mir
Baiz Khan is a scholar and team leader at the Ismaili Tariqah
and Religious Education Board, Canada. Previously he was Chief Officer
of the Aga Khan Higher Secondary School, Gilgit and head of the
Aga Khan Education Service in the northern areas of Pakistan. mirbaizkhan@yahoo.ca
Vision
and reality: reconstruction of Afghanistan’s higher education
Securing Afghanistan’s Future, a government/international
agency report (March 2004), Project Document for the Future of Higher
Education in Afghanistan, a document prepared for the Ministry of
Higher Education (MoHE) (March 2004), and Strategic Action Plan
for the Development of Higher Education in Afghanistan, produced
by a joint expert team from the MoHE, Afghanistan, and from the
International Institute for Education Planning UNESCO (May 2004),
indicate a vision and pathways to the reconstruction and development
of higher education in Afghanistan. The ambitious Strategic Action
Plan document puts a high premium on higher education: ‘If
Afghanistan is to re-establish its position in the family of nations,
higher education is a sine qua non.’ The document covers a
wide range of issues of reconstruction including building of institutional
structure, system of governance, student and faculty recruitment
and retention, improvement of teaching and learning, physical resources,
and management and financing of higher education. It identifies
17 higher education institutions of which 11 are universities and
6 are pedagogical institutions. ‘Given the need to make education
a strong tool for nation-building’ as a philosophy, Afghanistan’s
central authorities will be responsible for making major decisions
regarding structures and processes in higher education, including
standardised national procedure for the admission of students and
common rules for the organisation of study programmes as well as
the recruitment and progression of academic staff. The creation
of several new institutions has been recommended to inform policy
decisions of the central authorities. The question inevitably arises:
is the stated vision for Afghanistan’s higher education realisable?
What can be learnt from past experiences in the developing countries
in order to ensure the reliability of this vision? This paper will
focus on the vision of Afghanistan’s higher education, which
emerges from the above important documents and investigates challenges
on the ground. It will draw on the higher education literature in
developing countries and will explore on-the-ground issues that
led to the failure of equally ambitious and costly initiatives in
developing countries in the past with a view of addressing them
from the outset in the context of Afghanistan.
Yasmin
Lodi is Regional General Manager of the Aga Khan Humanities
Project (AKHP), based in Dushanbe, Tajikistan. Before joining the
AKHP team, she was the civic education project’s Programme
Director for Central Asia and Mongolia. lodi@akhp.org
Reforming
higher education in Central Asia: the role of non-governmental organisations
This paper examines the role of international non-governmental organisations
(INGO) in reforming higher education in Central Asia, particularly
as it relates to the various missions espoused by the INGOs: promoting
critical thinking skills to open societies, fostering cross-cultural
exchanges to internationalising education, and empowering individuals
to encourage democratic development. The paper argues that for education
to strive to achieve such lofty goals, certain basic conditions
must be met, such as the establishment of a critical mass of independent
scholars, who then create academic communities that establish a
tradition of scholarly discourse in the region. Therefore, the role
and impact on the region’s scholarship and education of three
INGO-funded/supported institutions in Central Asia: the American
University – Central Asia (AUCA); the Kazakhstan Institute
of Management, Economics, and Strategic Research (KIMEP); and the
Westminster International University at Tashkent (WIUT) that seek
to create such a critical mass of skilled citizenry is analysed.
The paper finds that these three institutions graduate confident,
skilled young men and women, who easily fit into the international
workplace, but often find it difficult to establish themselves in
their own societies or the public sector. This finding raises serious
questions for educators in the region: is a westernised elite essential
for economic and democratic development (India), is such alienation
of the elite from the social mores of a nation dangerous in the
long run (Iran), or building upon the Soviet project of westernisation,
should Central Asian countries embrace a programme of westernisation
of both the elite and the masses (Turkey)? The paper concludes with
an attempt to address these issues from both an Iqbalian perspective
as well as from that of Sir Syed Ahmed Khan.
Julie
McAdam teaches in the Faculty of Education at the University
of Glasgow, Scotland. She presently works on Initial Teacher Education
Programmes. Her recent research interest lies in the area of perceptions
of teachers within Scottish culture. j.mcadam@educ.gla.ac.uk
Jane
Mathewson is a faculty member at The Higher Colleges of
Technology, UAE, working on the Bachelor of Education degree –
a partnership between the HCT and the University of Melbourne, Australia.
She is currently exploring the role of feedback in teacher training
classrooms. jane.mathewson@hct.ac.ae
Teacher
education in the UAE: a case study
Much of today’s literature in the current post-modern and
postcolonial world provides us with narratives of substantial under-representation
of female involvement in higher education. In the United Arab Emirates
(UAE) the situation is markedly different, with four females to
every one male entering a higher education establishment. This paper
will present a case study detailing an innovative four-year Bachelor
of Education course running in six female campuses in the UAE. The
programme was created to contribute to the realisation of the UAE
government’s strategic plan for its education system, entitled
Vision 2020. The programme aims to produce reflective and research-informed
practitioners who will teach English in government primary and secondary
schools. The programme allows students to develop in five main areas:
Direct practice – students work in schools with mentor teachers
to develop their professional knowledge of practice, utilising their
‘knowledge in action’ and developing ‘reflection
in action’; Indirect practice – exposure to secondary
experiences such as video and case studies; Practical principles
– exposure to research-informed methodology and pedagogy;
Disciplinary theories – exposure to educational theory and
language learning theory; Personal theories – students develop
their ability to critically reflect and realise their own personal
theories within their current Islamic context. The paper will draw
upon examples of ways in which all of the above have been achieved,
with particular attention to the development of personal theory
through on-line forums and journals. Williams (1999) discussed the
importance of developing the ability to relate theory to practice
‘generating personal theories from public ones and public
theories from personal ones’. This is of immense importance
in a post-modern world where concepts and practices of literacy
are changing.
Rohani
Binti Mohamad is Lecturer of Mathematics at the Canadian
International Matriculation Programme, Sunway University College,
Malaysia. Besides teaching calculus and data management, she is
interested in the idea of assessment for learning and mathematics
education. She plans to pursue her PhD in the area of authentic
assessment within mathematics education.
rohanim@academic.sunway.edu.my
Muhammad
Rashdan Bin Abdul Rashid is a PhD candidate in molecular
microbial biotechnology at the Institute of Biological Sciences,
University of Malaya, Malaysia. In addition to research, he currently
teaches microbiology at the Department of Biotechnology Engineering,
International Islamic University, Malaysia. mrashdanr@iiu.edu.my
Mentorship:
a forgotten role in Malaysian research initiative
A recent survey of world university rankings conducted by the The
Times Higher Education Supplement (THES) provides a clear indication
of the uncompetitive quality of Malaysian higher education. Part
of this problem could be attributed to the absence of an excellent
postgraduate research culture. An important aspect to good research
training is high quality research mentorship. Excellent mentorship
will produce graduates who are competent scientists and who will
contribute to Malaysia’s sustainable development. Based on
our personal observations, Malaysian academicians are generally
more interested in accomplishing projects of applied research that
could potentially generate commercialised products. Fundamental
research and mentoring postgraduate students seem to be of least
concern to research supervisors and are not seen as an important
aspect to their students’ training. This paper attempts to
address the issue of mentorship in the context of current practices
in postgraduate science education in Malaysian universities. We
define what mentorship is and what it is not. Based on our personal
observations, we describe the differences between mentorship and
supervision. We also analyse the stated and unstated role, and expectation
of research supervision from the perspective of university administrators
based on documents from Malaysian and western universities. Based
on our personal experiences as postgraduate students both in the
West and in Malaysia, we found that mentorship is in practice in
western universities but is absent from Malaysian universities.
Finally, possible explanations as to the lack of mentorship are
suggested and suggestions to remedy the existing situation are provided.
In conclusion, mentorship ought to be a basic feature of Malaysian
postgraduate science training to produce scientists who can contribute
positively with novel ideas and knowledge to the economy. Otherwise,
Malaysia’s vision of becoming a fully developed Islamic nation
by 2020 and its wish to produce a Malaysian Nobel Science laureate
may not be realised.
Amena
Mohsin is Professor at the Department of International
Relations, University of Dhaka, Bangladesh. She received her MA
in Pacific Islands studies from the University of Hawaii and PhD
from Cambridge University. Her areas of interest include minorities,
human rights, gender and security issues. calter@bangla.net
The
making of a ‘political’ university: the University of
Dhaka, Bangladesh
In postcolonial societies the relationship between politics and
academia is not only intertwined but more often than not the former
influences the latter. This, one may argue, is a consequence of
colonialism wherein the colonial master attempted to create obedient
subjects not thinking minds. The knowledge system that came down
to us was hegemonic and helped to create an elite class, the legacy
of which we carry even today. But then independence did not make
much difference, since we remained colonised intellectually as well
as institutionally. A major irony of our nationalist movements was
the lack of innovation and spirit of democracy, with no regard for
wisdom, fairness and justice. The education sector was no exception
to this. The experiences of the University of Dhaka, Bangladesh,
bear this out. The University of Dhaka, often referred to as the
Oxford of the East, has over the years, due to increasing state
interference and overt politicisation of the administration and
teaching faculty, lost much of its past glory, with serious negative
implications for the state and society. This politicisation and
the consequent decay were not unexpected nor did they happen suddenly;
rather, the very constitutional structure and system of its administration
and also the appointment and subsequent promotion of the faculty
makes this quite inevitable. The University itself had a political
birth in 1921 in the then undivided India. Its premises boast the
birth of the Muslim League. It had been the forerunner of the Language
Movement of 1952, which had laid the basis of Bengali nationalism
that ultimately led to the liberation of Bangladesh in 1971. In
independent Bangladesh the university had been at the forefront
of all democratic movements. The role of the students in the anti-Ershad
movement bears this out. But ironically and somewhat contradictorily
(but not unexpectedly), in the process of its political activism
the university lost its democratic spirit and most importantly its
locus as a centre of academic endeavour and excellence. This paper
is an attempt to examine the process of politicisation of the University
of Dhaka. It argues that major political parties in Bangladesh carry
on their parochial party agendas through the academic institutions.
Students are used as pawns in this game resulting in the degeneration
of not only education but also the creation of a degenerated political
system for the country as a whole. The paper will be divided into
four sections. The first traces the birth of the university and
its emergence as a symbol of nationalist and democratic aspirations
of the people. The second engages in a critical examination of the
1973 Ordinance responsible for the administration of the University
of Dhaka. The third section will take into account the ongoing debate
within the civil society as well as student community about the
utility and futility of the 1973 Ordinance and the overt involvement
of the academic community into the mainstream political party politics.
Finally on the basis of the above, my personal experiences, interviews
with students, teachers and other civil society members, certain
recommendations will be made.
Saeed
Mortazavi is Assistant Professor at the Faculty of Economic
and Administrative Science, Ferdowsi University, Mashhad, Iran.
mortazavi@ferdowsi.um.ac.ir
Managerial
policies and practices in the Islamic Republic of Iran’s higher
education sector
Higher education is essential to building human capital and sustaining
all aspects of development. Pressures on universities have increased
a great deal now that higher education has been identified as an
important social, cultural and economic component of development,
especially in Islamic countries. Increased public expectation and
the need to collaborate with public and private sector organisations
within regions, pressure to diversify sources of income, calls for
improved quality, the rapid movement from elite to mass to universal
access to higher education, demands for flexibility in programme
design, changing student demographics, new realities in electronic
communication and other challenges in higher education have all
increased the pressure on universities to set up institutional reforms.
The present paper reflects on the impact of the above challenges
on higher education policies and managerial practices with particular
reference to how the higher education sector in Iran has transformed.
The core of this paper is an examination of the ways and strategies
that the government of Iran has adopted to reform its higher education
system in response to the changing socioeconomic and political context;
with particular focus on provision, regulation, university–society
relationship, administration and finance.
Marodsilton
Muborakshoeva is a DPhil student at the Department of Educational
Studies, Oxford University. His research interests are in education
in the Muslim world and Muslim universities. marodsilton_m@hotmail.com
Challenges
of higher education with reference to universities in Muslim contexts
This paper explores the challenges higher education, particularly
universities, face in the modern world. Universities in Muslim contexts,
especially those that aim to enhance the intellectual, professional,
artistic and spiritual development of its students while following
Islamic ethics, humanistic ideas and a particular philosophy, share
these challenges, but at the same time face challenges specific
to their nature and purpose. It points out that there exist different
versions of higher education often clashing with one another. These
modern developments take their roots from the 18th century age of
rationalism. As early as the 19th century there were those that
saw university as a place for the enhancement of knowledge and professionalism.
For intellectuals like John Henry Newman university was a place
for a liberal education. The impact of the developing industry on
higher education and society’s need for better educated individuals
has resulted in the creation of ‘industrial universities’.
Although some of the older universities maintained their autonomy,
the paper accounts that most universities, starting from the post-war
period, have been experiencing challenges to their autonomy and
responsiveness to the demands and needs of their host society. Looking
at Muslim societies, modern universities have reflected what went
on in European and American universities, with their successes and
failures. The paper argues that universities in Muslim contexts
have the potential of offering an alternative model of higher education
to the existing ones. However, they face some additional challenges.
For example, how far can these universities be modern and at the
same time hold on to the traditional values of knowledge and ethics
rooted in spiritual, cultural and civilisational aspects of Islam?
The paper also accounts for numerous challenges that these universities
may face. Possible solutions may come out of my study Features of
Universities: the Muslim Contexts, based on historical and comparative
approaches and qualitative interviews of leading scholars and experts.
Aisha
Darr Mumtaz is Lecturer at the Indus Valley School of Art
and Architecture, Karachi. She has received degrees in political
science and fine arts respectively from Bryn Mawr College and William
Smith College, USA. She is pursuing an MSc in comparative and international
education at the University of Oxford. aishadarr@gmail.com
Higher
education as an integral tool for development in the Third World
– with Pakistan as a case study
This paper examines the role of higher education as an integral
tool for development in the Third World – with Pakistan as
a case study. It attempts to define the concept of ‘sustainable
development’ through an ‘internal’ voice (internal
here means from within the developing world); and argue the relevance
and importance of the provision of higher education as an essential
factor in the achievement of sustainable development within the
country. The paper also explores the role of higher education in
addressing and investigating the ‘kind’ of education
that is required in the development context. It briefly traces the
traditional role of existing higher education systems in Pakistan
and their impact on development. Subsequently, the paper argues
that if sustainable development is to be achieved through the provision
of higher education, then higher education in itself must undergo
a radical epistemological and structural change. This ‘change’
is advocated on the basis of four underlying areas of concern that
shape the fundamental hindrances towards developmental progress
and that can be redefined and influenced through higher education
systems. The four underlying issues discussed are: the emphasis
on scientific and technological knowledge, at the expense of humanities
in higher education in developing countries like Pakistan; a bias
in favour of universal and ‘research-based knowledge’,
resulting in the marginalisation of ‘local knowledge’
and consequentially in the marginalisation of large portions of
indigenous populations; the need to clarify perspectives to enable
educators to formulate coherent policies; and finally, to raise
the awareness and debate of development issues in order to counteract
the overwhelming dearth of critical questioning in the culture.
Rajani
Naidoo is Director of the Doctorate of Business Administration
in Higher Education Management at the University of Bath. Previously
she helped create an institution which aimed to transform higher
education in South Africa by developing innovative academic programmes
for talented black students who were excluded from elite universities.
R.Naidoo@Bath.ac.uk
Unequal
knowledge: exporting higher education to developing countries
Forces associated with globalisation and the ‘knowledge economy’
have repositioned higher education as a crucial site for the production
of economically productive knowledge. This has led to the harnessing
of public universities in a relatively unmediated manner to economic
productivity. This paper advances the argument that this has led
to the ‘commodification’ of higher education which may
be understood as the transformation of education processes and products
into a form that has an economic worth rather than an intrinsic
‘use-value’. While research has been conducted on the
effects of commodification on research, there has been little analysis
of the influence of such pressures on the development of academic
programmes in a global context. This paper develops a theoretical
analysis of the concept ‘commodification’ and adapts
it to contemporary conditions by drawing on concepts related to
neo-liberalism and cultural imperialism. The theoretical framework
is applied to analyse the interaction of industrialised and developing
countries in relation to higher education provision. The paper indicates
that the constrained ability of governments in developing countries
to mobilise resources for higher education and the re-branding of
higher education as an exportable commodity is likely to lead to
a stampede by providers in industrialised countries to offer higher
education programmes in developing countries. There is a fear that
developing countries are likely to be viewed as mass markets for
the dumping of low quality knowledge. Such initiatives are likely
to stunt indigenous capacity in research and education and exacerbate
global inequality. The paper concludes by presenting strategic responses
to this dilemma which may be useful to higher education policy makers
in Muslim contexts. In particular, South Africa is drawn on as a
case study of a country that has developed strategic measures to
enter the global higher education arena on its own terms.
Isam
Naqib is Project Manager of UNDP/RBAS Higher Education
Project. He is former Professor of Nuclear Physics at Kuwait University,
where he also became, successively, Chairman of the Physics Department,
Dean of the graduate college and Vice President for Research.
isam.naqib@tiscali.co.uk;
isam.naqib@gmail.com
Main
outcomes of the UNDP/RBAS project on quality assurance and institutional
planning in Arab universities
This project was initiated and sponsored by the Regional Bureau
for Arab States of the United Nations Developed Programme (UNDP/RBAS)
and was implemented over a period of 30 months (1 January 2002–30
June 2004). The overall aim of the project was to assist partner
universities, in real academic time, in introducing, applying and
demonstrating the benefits of three internationally based instruments
of quality assurance, each organised as one component of the project.
These are: evaluation of the quality of programmes, starting with
the fields of Computer Science and Business Administration; testing
the performance of the senior students of reviewed programmes; and
building comparable statistical profiles of participating universities.
The project was carried out in partnership with 29 leading universities
(23 public and 6 private) in 12 Arab countries (Morocco, Algeria,
Egypt, Sudan, Yemen, Oman, Bahrain, UAE, Jordan, Palestine, Syria
and Lebanon). A regional statistical database was developed by a
group of 15 participating universities, where detailed data was
compiled by each on its main activities and resources (academic
programmes, staff and student demographics and finances), all in
accordance with common definitions and specifications. An adapted
version of the statistical database model developed by the UK Higher
Education Statistical Agency (HESA) and used by all British universities
was employed by the project. The regional and international comparability
of the compiled data enabled a wealth of interesting findings to
be revealed and expressed in terms of derived statistical indicators.
Several examples of these findings, which should be of interest
to academic researchers, managers and planners, will be presented.
This component of the project proved to be particularly challenging
in that the standards of data management, as well as accessibility
to the required data, varied widely between universities. It is
believed, however, that the experience acquired and the lessons
learned by this core group of universities provide a strong foundation
for expanding the regional database network to other universities
in the region.
Günseli
Oral is Assistant Professor at the Faculty of Education,
Department of Educational Sciences, Akdeniz University, Antalya,
Turkey. She is a psychologist and completed her MSc and PhD in curriculum
and instruction. Her research focus is on development of creativity
and humour in education. gunselioral@akdeniz.edu.tr
Creativity
in Turkish higher education: the case of teacher selection and training
Universities in developed countries require people who can think,
make new scientific discoveries, and find more adequate solutions
to impelling world problems. For developing countries, integration
of creative thinking skills in university education is a crucial
need for shaping their future orientations and actualising reforms
in political, economical and cultural areas. For many Muslim countries,
creativity remains neglected, whereas in developed countries, educational
philosophy and goals rely on students’ enhancement of creativity
and self-actualisation. It seems that the Turkish educational system
which is highly centralised and achievement-oriented, seeks creative
and innovative teachers who are able to enhance creative thinking
strategies and respect students’ creative ideas. The present
study investigates whether four dimensions of creativity (fluency,
flexibility, originality and elaboration) are accounted for in the
university entrance examination (ÖSS) in the selection of prospective
teachers in Turkey. The sample of study consisted of students in
the faculty of education at Akdeniz University. Regression analyses
demonstrated that although creativity dimensions were not included
in ÖSS in previous years, they are taken into consideration
at moderate but significant levels in recent years. This shift in
the ÖSS, which is a standardised test, seems to be the sign
of an educational innovation; however, this educational reform remains
insufficient in producing a creative, developed society. The article
discusses alternative ways of selecting and training prospective
teachers who are creative and who can develop creativity and innovation
in Turkish society.
Maryam
Rab is Deputy Registrar at Fatima Jinnah Women’s
University, Rawalpindi, Pakistan. She has an MA in Education Management
from King’s College, London, and is currently pursuing a doctorate
in education at the Institute of Education, University of London.
merriam_r72@hotmail.com
Agents
of change: researching the lives of postgraduates of a women’s
university in Pakistan
The paper is an effort to investigate the impact of higher education
on the lives of young women graduates hailing from low socio-economic
backgrounds in a women’s university. It will explore the effect
of this education on their families, their socio-economic status
and on their related self-perception. These were pioneer postgraduates
belonging to conservative rural backgrounds and were employed in
an urban setting and were perhaps articulating these affects for
the first time for this research (through semi-structured interviews).
It was partially a process of self exploration – the researcher
being a teacher and administrator at the same university, with an
understanding of the issues related to the researched and insight
into the culture and norms of significance to the understanding
of the issues being explored. An eclectic approach – a combination
of feminist and interpretive – is used to reach some logical
conclusions. The responses show that though the process of change
is slow it is steady, deeply rooted, real and similar but not identical
for all. These insights have important ramifications vis-à-vis
restructuring and revisiting paradigms for conducting authentic
research in a developing country like Pakistan.
Amin
Rehmani is a PhD student at the University of London’s
Institute of Education. He works with Aga Khan University’s
Examination Board where his main functions are curriculum and examination
development for core subjects, conducting workshops for teachers
and materials development. amin.rehmani@aku.edu
Approaches
to Islamic Studies at graduate and postgraduate levels in the context
of Pakistan
Education in Pakistan is said to be governed by the ideology of
Islam. The state bases its education system on ‘sound Islamic
principles’, as one of the objectives of the Education Policy
1998–2010 is to ‘make the Qur’anic principles
and Islamic practices an integral part of curricula so that the
message of the Holy Quran could be disseminated in the process of
education as well as training …’. Islamiyat, or the
teaching of Islam, has been made compulsory from classes I to XIV,
that is from primary one to first-degree level, including Nazira
or recitation of the Quran in classes I–VIII, translation
and explanation of prescribed Quranic chapters and Hadith and other
aspects of Islamiyat from grades IX to XIV in secondary and higher
secondary schools, and degree colleges. Universities offer BA honours
and master level programmes in Islamiyat/Islamic Studies, Islamic
history and Arabic. This paper critically discusses the curriculum
of these subjects, focusing mainly on their approaches and content
at graduate and postgraduate levels. It builds upon the national
curriculum documents for Islamiyat in secondary and post-secondary
education. The need for more critical approaches to studying Islam
at the higher education levels by using social and human disciplines;
in particular, historical and anthropological discourses is also
argued for. Such an approach will lead to an appreciation of the
formation, development and diversity of cultures achieved by generations
of Muslims over time and in different lands. The teaching of Muslim
heritage as much as the contemporary Muslim societies will strengthen
the relevance of what is called a ‘civilisational approach’
to studying Islam. This paper further argues for harmony and integration,
both inter and intra, between curricula offered by secular institutions,
such as colleges and universities, and by Deeni madaris. The paper
advocates a common curriculum of Islamiyat not only for students
of the arts but also those in the sciences, commerce and other subjects
so as to allow the ethics of faith to permeate the minds of the
youth with understanding and humility and equip them with knowledge
and understanding of dealing with contemporary issues faced by Muslims
in the present day. Such an approach requires discussion on the
need for new Islamiyat courses.
Ali
Riahi is an undergraduate student in Industrial Management
at Azad University, Tehran, Iran. His research interests are elites
and knowledge management, higher education in developing countries
and information technology.
Ali2631@yahoo.com
Historical
trajectory – impact and outcomes of Iranian elite emigration
A professional and efficient manpower is considered one of the essential
factors of development in countries. The more a country has access
to the richness of professional and intellectual human resources,
the greater that country’s capacity in catering for creativity,
invention and innovation. Emigration of scientific and professional
elites has been one of the most significant problems to have seriously
challenged developing countries. In Iran, in recent years, despite
the country’s dire need for the labour and activity of its
elites in society, every year a large number of professionals and
scientific assets decide to emigrate to industrial countries. This
emigration takes place under circumstances in which individuals
do not find the existing conditions promising and feel obliged to
choose while hoping that in the future the conditions of the country
would become more conducive to their activities, allowing them to
return to their country to continue their life and serve their people.
This emigration phenomenon is considered one of the main factors
behind the backwardness of Third World countries. In this paper,
briefly, a definition of ‘elites’ is given, the historical
trajectory of professional emigration in Iran, reasons for it and
influencing factors are also discussed. Statistics of the number
of emigrants and studies of the impact and outcomes of elite emigration
are also provided. Finally, in response to the question ‘What
necessary steps ought to be taken to preserve and harness professionals
in the country?’ the paper concludes and mentions some steps
which have been considered.
Majid
Sameti is at the Faculty of Administrative Sciences and
Economics, Department of Economics, University of Isfahan, Iran.
P_smeti@hotmail.com
Public
funding and enrolment in higher education
In most countries higher education is highly subsidised by the state.
What impact has this public funding had on the educational choices
of students? In this paper we apply instrumental variable techniques
to find that public funding increases college enrolment. The paper
also develops a classification of higher education structures and
shows the effects of these structures on university resources and
research activities. The theory underlying this relationship is
the classic human capital model, where an individual maximises his
discounted stream of lifetime net earnings of the costs of education.
Frederiksson (1997) analyses the demand for university education
in Sweden from 1967 to 1991. Exploiting variation over time he looks
particularly at the impact of funding variables like grants and
loans on national enrolment rates.
F.
Nevra Seggie is a PhD student in the Higher Adult Lifelong
Education Programme, Department of Educational Administration, Michigan
State University. Previously she worked as an English language instructor
in different higher education institutions in Turkey. seggiefa@msu.edu
Institutional
transformation: managing and implementing change in state universities
in Turkey
The mission of Turkish higher education has traditionally been to
achieve contemporary levels of civilisation; however, there has
recently been a shift towards training students for the workforce.
Turkey, as other countries, has been faced with financial pressures,
growth in technology, privatisation, globalisation, internationalisation
and competition both within and beyond its national borders. The
job market has shrunk and universities are becoming more market
driven as students become focused on jobs after graduation. These
and changing demographics, faculty roles and public scrutiny have
necessitated major reforms in the Turkish higher education system.
These innovations have required major organisational changes in
post-secondary institutions. The question is whether the changes
will lead to fruitful outcomes during the implementation stage.
Every type of change needs a clear vision and formal or informal
leaders. The role of leadership is critical when change is transformational,
because of its depth and magnitude. Thus, leadership and decision-making
styles are critical in determining the extent to which transformational
change is successful. Research in western countries suggests that
collaborative leadership and participative decision-making are essential
agents when higher education institutions are embarking in new directions.
Within the context of globalisation, it is important to understand
the decision-making processes that contribute to different types
of organisational change in different cultures. This would help
us see whether a decision-making style that works in one country
is culturally cultivated and fostered by leaders, and thus context-bound
or universal. This paper focuses on how decision-making and leadership
styles are perceived in the context of a major change in a medium-sized
state university in Turkey. The study examines the experiences and
perceptions of stakeholders – their leadership styles and
decision-making processes – during a change in language policy
from Turkish as the medium of instruction to 30 per cent English.
Nuha
al-Sha‘ar has a BA from al-Ba‘th University
in Syria, an MA in History from the School of Oriental and African
Studies, University of London, and is currently a PhD student at
the University of Cambridge. Her research has focused on the historical
and literary developments of Islamic ethics. nuha33@yahoo.com
Practical
and innovative approaches to promoting a performance culture in
higher education: a case study of the Syrian system of higher education
This paper aims to discuss adopting the culture of cooperative and
collaborative teaching and learning in order to improve the performance
of higher education institutions towards quality education. Given
the implications and complexities of the Syrian system of higher
education and some of the highlighted weaknesses within this system,
the paper calls for a humanised practical approach to learning and
teaching through the shared responsibility of teachers and students.
The main idea behind this proposed approach is the empowerment of
both teachers and students within the academic environment of higher
education institutions. This highlights the need for a more participatory
student-teacher approach to learning and teaching. This humanised
practical approach emphasises that students’ perceptions of
their learning experience have important pedagogical implications,
since they provide a crucial foundation for improving education
at all levels. As a result, the role of the teacher is emphasised
as a facilitator to help students during their group activities
and individual class performances. A model of cooperative culture
is envisaged which provides an insight into input curricular and
co-curricular adaptations. These adaptations may lead to perceived
output performance results in terms of creating a progressive learning
culture that promotes a communicative relationship between teachers
and students, consensus, responsibility, confidence, skills and
so forth. However, this proposed approach is not an answer to all
problems in the Syrian educational system, but is an initial step
towards achieving quality higher education in Syria.
K.
E. Shaw is Research Fellow at the School of Education and
Lifelong Learning, University of Exeter, Devon. He supervises PhD
candidates from developing countries and specifically the Middle
East North Africa region, where he has a particular interest in
higher education and the implementation of educational policies
generally.
K.E.Shaw@exeter.ac.uk
Researching
the trade in knowledge between the West and MENA countries
Ideas are economic commodities, which are traded internationally
in the global market place and on the Internet. This trade offers
many opportunities as topics for higher degree dissertations by
research students at overseas universities, notably in British schools
of education or of Middle Eastern and Islamic Studies. Not only
franchised courses, but also pedagogical approaches such as IT supported
learning, as well as methods of curricular evaluation are adopted
from overseas. This trade interacts with the international market
for knowledge related labour in the global capitalist marketplace.
Such sharing of carefully designed products which have been field-tested
in the home market, is taken for granted in the West and is big
business for those involved. This knowledge transfer also contributes
to economic growth and development in the receiving countries. In
most MENA countries a high wage/high productivity workforce would
contribute to living standards as well as economic growth and development.
This depends on wise and coordinated policies for education, training
and staff development both before entry to employment and later
on the job. Such policies may include appropriate elements adopted
from the West. What is being traded is technology underpinned by
systematic research, heavy investment, and professional experience.
But successful adoption of any such technology is not straightforward.
It may encounter resistance, challenge, and distortion of the original
intentions, frequently because it is seen as culturally inappropriate
by the stakeholders. Careful evaluation, investment in research,
monitoring and the scrutiny of experience in these domains, are
tasks for higher education institutions, which are the chief providers
of local research by insiders. To bring this about will require
solid knowledge of learning theories and practices, which underlie
the overseas material at its point of production, and how these
might be contextualised locally in the receiving countries. Beyond
this, there will need to be modifications in the system and institutions
of education especially at higher levels. The indigenisation of
overseas material thus requires some awareness of the economic,
political, social and cultural conditions locally, into which the
new material will be embedded. There is thus ample scope for research
at Masters and PhD levels by local fieldwork, which would not be
prohibitively expensive. It would require, however, thorough theoretical
awareness and methodological sophistication.
Jamsheer
J. Talati is Habiba Subjali Jiwa Professor of Surgery and
former Associate Dean of Education, Aga Khan University. He has
lead curricular reform in medicine in Pakistan (1980 to date) as
founding head of the Department of Educational Development, Urology
Section, and Chair of the Curriculum Committee.
jamsheer.talati@aku.edu
Camer
Vellani is Distinguished University Professor at the Aga
Khan University (AKU), Karachi. He has been at AKU since 1979, where
he assisted in the development of the Medical College and where,
from 1997 to 2001, he served as Rector. camer.vellani@aku.edu
Broader
education within professional higher education
To date, Aga Khan University (AKU) Professional Higher Education
programmes have instituted various measures to support inclusive
intellectual development in students chosen from various backgrounds.
Alumni recount the value of community health experiences, ethical
grand rounds and perceptive sessions that supported a thoughtful
analysis of religious beliefs amongst other elements of their education
in their undergraduate years. Learning from this experience, AKU
is poised to move forwards to consider unique curricula incorporating
a broad general education as an essential part of university education
with streams that return students to broader interdisciplinary learning
during education for a professional life. What would be the nature
of that broader education? The future is uncertain: but we can predict
that graduates will have to cope with the destructive nature of
humans, widespread and increasing inequities, and the human inability
to answer difficult questions bordering on religion; factors which
are conditioning unhelpful responses to the complex challenges of
a world in chaos. Because of current trends in migration, they will
have to cope with these problems in all countries of our global
yet disparate world. Thus graduates need to develop a wide range
of useful characteristics, a broad spread of knowledge, and a flexibility
to apply different approaches and techniques according to varied
contexts. The special elements in current AKU curricula which support
pragmatic intellectual strategies include amongst others, preparatory
programmes that allow admission of disadvantaged students from areas
where the majority of the world’s problems lie; elective opportunities
both in countries hampered by limited resources, as well as those
with a full range of equipment and technology; curricula and research
based on problems in communities; perceptive instructional strategies
to engage students in a thoughtful discussion on religion; and a
charged and heavily supported learning-resource-rich environment
that involves students and faculty in committee work and institution
building, research, ethics and exemplary education. Unscheduled
in the curriculum are opportunities to attend bioethics grand rounds,
AKU special lectures and the vicarious learning that comes from
being involved with exemplary faculty. To further strengthen our
graduates’ ability to cope with the world, broader education
demands additional emphasis. However, traditional professional higher
education leaves little time for wider reading and broader education
in humanities and arts and social sciences. With the commencement
of the Faculty of Arts and Sciences, there are now unique opportunities
for AKU to build mandatory preparatory programmes of general education
of value for all professionals and complement this by a return to
considerations of general broader education in the humanities and
social sciences during the course of intensive professional development.
Chad
Thompson has held teaching positions in Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan
and Uzbekistan, and managed regional faculty and curriculum development
projects for the Civic Education Project. Since 2002, he has been
with the Aga Khan Humanities Project (AKHP) in Dushanbe, Tajikistan.
thompson@akhp.org
Humanities
in the plural: AKHP in Central Asian universities
When I began working at a state university in Central Asia, we had
one member amongst our faculty who occupied a particular role. This
individual monitored the cultural propriety of the courses, students,
and fellow faculty, and ensured that national and religious sensibilities
were maintained. As such, she was sceptical of the presence of a
foreigner within the teaching staff, and whether my practices would
be in keeping with local values. There was a fear that foreign factors
could corrupt or diminish such values. She assumed this proprietary
role as a professor of spirituality; several years earlier, she
had been a professor of scientific atheism. This individual encapsulates
a key moment of Central Asian higher education. External studies
of Central Asia often approach the region through one of two vectors:
from the perspective of post-Soviet studies, focusing on the 20th
century’s legacy in the region, or from the perspective of
Islamic studies, emphasising pre-Soviet and pre-Tsarist cultural
traditions. These partial approaches miss the manner in which a
monolithic notion of ‘Islam’ and ‘culture’
is invoked as a means of resisting reform, perpetuating practices
bearing strong resemblances to Soviet norms. The humanities are
playing a key role in constructing this cultural monolith, establishing
a singular canon of literature, philosophy and religion. This paper
approaches the issue through the work of the Aga Khan Humanities
Project (AKHP) which seeks an alternative approach to the humanities
in higher education, negotiating amongst the diversity of Soviet,
national, religious, and international traditions which have shaped
Central Asia. Critical studies of the humanities can play a role
in understanding the pluralism and diversity internal to the region’s
own traditions. The experience of AKHP also sounds a cautionary
note, reminding us that without diligence, ‘pluralism’
can also be transformed into a similar monolith.
Bakhtiar
Shabani Varaki is Associate Professor at the Faculty of
Education and Psychology, Ferdowsi University, Mashhad, Iran. His
research focus is in philosophy of education, methodology and research,
and teaching methods.
bshabani@ferdowsi.um.ac.ir
Tahereh
Javidi is a member of the faculty at Ferdowsi University,
Mashhad, Iran. Her research interests are in the philosophy of education,
democracy, and Islam and education.
tjavidi@ferdowsi.um.ac.ir
Globalisation
and higher education: rethinking universalism vs particularism in
developing countries
One of the most important struggles within higher education is between
the proponents and opponents of universalism and globalisation.
Proponents assert that educational research should be thought of
on a global scale. On the other hand, opponents are renouncing the
conceit to ‘think big,’ ‘think global,’
modestly inviting us to ‘think small’ – on the
scale of our local communities. They illustrate that ‘you
can’t do a good act that is global’. ‘A good act
has to be scaled and designed so that it fits into the local conditions
and givens of a particular place.’ This paper attempts to
address the issue of educational studies confronting the challenges
of the dialectic process of universalism and particularism. In this
paper, it will be elucidated that educational purposes first of
all help individuals fully develop their potentiality. Since personal
development cannot be detached from cultural nutrition, educational
studies should therefore begin with the understanding of individuality
and cultural particularity. An understanding of individuality does
not mean the exclusion of searching for a universal global order.
So it seems on the surface, that indigenous particularities are
contrary to global universality; however, they are in agreement
with each other. Therefore, higher education scientists can produce
knowledge facilitating self understanding and the understanding
of one’s own cultural particularities. Those who have a clear
self-understanding can in turn understand, appreciate and respect
others. Educational scientists, by providing knowledge toward self-understanding
and mutual understanding, can be conducive in developing a globalised
world full of peace and love.
Munir
Vellani is a Programme Coordinator and Lecturer at the
Centre for Cross-Faculty Inquiry, University of British Columbia,
Canada. His interests lie in both urban education, and in international
education, where he seeks to forge strategic links between international
and national academic institutions, NGOs, local communities, and
grant providers.
munir.vellani@ubc.ca;
vellani@telus.net
Lynn
Fels is Assistant Director, Special Projects, External
Programmes and Learning Technologies, University of British Columbia,
Vancouver, Canada. Her research interests are performative inquiry
in education, collaborative participation and partnership in pedagogical
endeavours, and online publishing as a pedagogical means of communication
and community development.
lynn.fels@ubc.ca
‘Internationalisation’
in Canadian higher education, and collaborative curriculum, research
and development, opportunities among nations
Contemporary students and teachers of higher education everywhere
need to be aware of the vital and deliberate phenomenon called ‘internationalisation’
that is beginning to inform, and increasingly drive higher education
curriculum, policies and practices in Canadian universities. At
the Faculty of Education, University of British Columbia, Canada,
increasing efforts are being made to imagine a higher education
curricular practice that seeks to bring national and international
collaborations to bear upon research and curricular practices. Hence,
this new phenomenon offers a remarkable opportunity to cultivate
practical partnerships and research projects between so-called ‘Western’
universities and higher education institutions in Muslim nations,
as well as between non-governmental organisations, grant providers,
and relevant government institutions. This paper attempts to narrate
current challenges and opportunities experienced in initiating one
such international and inter-institutional partnership project.
The paper will highlight one Canadian higher education institution’s
research and collaborative intentions to create links with NGOs
and government institutions to facilitate an Early Childhood Centre
in Kabul, Afghanistan. The paper will take this case of a ‘challenging
opportunity’ to re-imagine and inform future pathways where
such initiatives can be opened up and made fruitful. Higher education
teaching and learning in plural societies requires researchers,
project developers, funding bodies, and academics to respond swiftly
and intelligently to the fact that an unprecedented level of international
awareness and opportunity for interaction is occurring in Canadian
universities. The recognition that Canadian universities might proactively
involve themselves in collaborative international work makes it
necessary for educators and education institutions among nations
to consider a timely, deliberate, and ethical response. In short,
leveraging the international dimension of Canada’s higher
education and research has the potential of bringing collaborative
forces to bear upon the needs of plural societies of the world.
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