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[nomad soul]

Ministry studying plan to allow foreign universities
Arab News | December 26, 2013
Source: http://www.arabnews.com/news/498666

The Private Education Directorate at the Ministry of Higher Education is studying applications of foreign universities to open branches in the Kingdom. A source at the ministry said the government has received tens of applications from a number of foreign and Arab universities to open branches in the Kingdom and is carrying out discussions with its consultants as well as consultants from Saudi universities to draft a special regulation for foreign universities. The ministry will then meet with officials from the investment authorities to streamline this regulation with the foreign investment arm.

The source emphasized the ministry’s seriousness in granting licenses to outstanding foreign universities to open branches in the Kingdom. He said the ministry stipulated that universities should be among the Top 100 universities in the world, and its staff should be subject to the employment regulations in the original university. The university should teach the same subjects as the original university, in addition to Islamic culture and Arabic language. These university branches will be familiarized with the customs and traditions of the Islam and should conform to the rules and regulations of the Saudi state. The branches would need to have separate departments for males and females, the source said. He said the ministry aims to raise the standards of higher education in the Kingdom, and minimize sending students on government scholarships to cut spending. Allowing foreign universities to open branches in the Kingdom will create competition among local universities and bring about quality education.

The ministry is studying the possibility of including these universities in the foreign scholarship program. The source said these universities will be subjected to 99 percent of the internal private education regulation and the foreign investment law with certain amendments. They will also be subjected to quality specifications approved by the ministry. Additionally, they will be asked to provide specialties that are needed in the Saudi market, and will only be permitted to open one branch in a single location. The fee structure will also be similar to those of private universities. The source said that the branches were to use their international names. However, the ministry would not offer any facilities to these universities until after the project proved to be a success.

The private university regulation states that universities should offer educational and training programs to raise the level of scientific specialties that suit the educational framework of the Kingdom. The law also states that universities should have a minimum of five partners, and at least three colleges that provide specialties needed by the market, and meet the developmental plans of the country. Furthermore, the university should conform to scientific specifications in its educational and technical plans and programs related to the educational curricular. Universities should also manage their internal affairs in compliance with the Kingdom’s rules and regulations.

The law stipulates that the university’s board of trustees should include a representative from the Ministry of Higher Education. The university’s dean should be a Saudi and will be appointed by the minister. The duration of his appointment will be 4 years and his contract is renewable. The university will be under the supervision of the ministry in relation to the approval of its regulation, study plans, scientific programs and research centers.

The universities’ performance will be reviewed on a regular basis through reports and field visits.

(End of article)

* * * * * * * * *

Hmm... The Ministry needs to loosen up on some of the requirements they plan to place on foreign universities; otherwise, those unis will end up as (failed) carbon copies of their Saudi counterparts. Plus, there's the issue of maintaining accreditation.

[rollingk]

A typical head-up-there Arab News article. They contend something but demonstrably put forth the opposite. The article is full of all these stipulations for foreign universities, as though KSA is afraid of compromising the integrity of their present stellar system.

And how can it really be a foreign university if there's to be a Saudi dean. This is particularly telling and certainly does mean that

[plumpy nut]

What serious University regents in their right mind are going to plant their university in Saudi Arabia? How is the university going to handle an Alghotami named uncle going to the Ministry of Education over his failed nephew?

[rtm]

[trapezius]

[rollingk]

[nomad soul]

There apparently has been a change of heart...

Shoura says no to foreign universities in Kingdom
Arab News | 21 May 2015
Source: http://www.arabnews.com/saudi-arabia/news/749846

JEDDAH: The Shoura Council has rejected the proposal of council member Saeed Al-Sheikh to permit foreign universities to open branches in the Kingdom due to concerns over breaching Saudi cultural traditions and gender segregation. The decision was also based on the failure of the branches of universities in surrounding countries to transfer the latest technologies and the best professors.

According to the council, there is no need to open branches of foreign universities in the Kingdom due to the success of Custodian of the Two Holy Mosques Scholarship Program. Ibrahim Abu Abah challenged the proposal, arguing that there are 40 government and private universities able to absorb high school graduates. While Prince Khaled Al-Saud pointed out that opening foreign universities would require mixed academic environments, Sultan Al-Sultan supported the proposal, arguing that “continuing to graduate students in non-technical fields from our universities would impose a threat on national development.”

According to Fatma Al-Qarni, students from more conservative provinces often return from scholarships abroad with “culture shock.” She said it was “strange” that the council had rejected a proposal on Monday regarding teaching assistants and lecturers not taking scholarships abroad, but refused to permit opening foreign universities in the Kingdom due to cultural considerations. She said many Saudi students wishing to become lecturers or teachers assistants were forced to study abroad, including the Saudi student Nahed Al-Zaid who was murdered while studying abroad to become a teaching assistant.

The Shoura Council had rejected a proposal by Fardous Al-Saleh to launch an external joint supervision programme (EJSP) for teaching assistants and lecturers in Saudi universities. The proposal argued that the EJSP program at King Abdulaziz University is the only regulatory one currently, and suggested granting the opportunity for teaching assistants and lecturers to complete their higher education at universities if social circumstances do not permit them to study abroad.

(End of article)

[trapezius]

Knew it wouldn't work

[Pikgitina]

These pesky foreign universities tend to meddle in domestic affairs which KSA obviously would not want. The Eye of Sauron would be on human rights issues, especially the rights of the construction workers involved in the construction of new campuses. The NYU campus being built on Saadiyat Island in Abu Dhabi is an example.

[MixtecaMike]

McGill, which according to my Canadian colleagues is a top Canadian university, was joyously happy to open a farcical program here of which forum readers are only too well informed. Is it that Canadians have no shame or integrity compared to other countries or are my Canadian colleagues just pulling my leg re the status of said institution? I suspect the cash-strapped western unis will be only too happy to stick their fingers in the pie.
(As are many of us foreign-devil teachers)

[plumpy nut]

[Gamajorba]

Fair to say that Saudi just fails at education, period.

[nomad soul]

On a related note...

Some Arab Youth Study Abroad Close to Home
By Sarah Lynch, Al-Fanar Media | 26 May 2015
Source: http://www.al-fanarmedia.org/2015/05/some-arab-youth-study-abroad-close-to-home/

CAIRO—When considering where to get her undergraduate degree, Lana Al Kahala, who is Syrian, applied to universities across the Middle East and in Canada, the United States and Switzerland. She said she was accepted at most of them, including Carnegie Mellon University in Qatar, where she is now studying business administration. Carnegie Mellon was among my choices but I hadn’t really thought about it until I got accepted,” said Kahala. “Then, I started thinking more and more, ‘I can go to the States, but the States is far away, so why can’t I just get the same education somewhere close to my family?”

Al Kahala’s decision probably puts her in the minority of the highest-performing Arab students, but nevertheless reflects a growing trend: Students across the Middle East and North Africa are increasingly considering higher-education institutions within the region, data analyzed by the College Board indicates.

The College Board is a U.S.-based membership organization best known for administering the SAT tests that most American universities require for student admission. The Board analyzed where 24,000 students reporting home addresses in the Middle East and North Africa sent their scores between July 2013 and June 2014, to try to understand the student’s preferences and interests.

In North Africa and the Middle East, the College Board found that the majority of students were sending their SAT scores to institutions in their home countries, said Yoko Kono, assistant director of International Market Analytics at the College Board. That trend is primarily driven by students in Egypt and Lebanon. In those two countries, students often take the SAT tests instead of national exams.

But the College Board also found an increase in student mobility within the region. In particular, Arab students were attracted to study at institutions in Gulf countries. The shift toward regional mobility from longer journeys to Western educational destinations is also a global trend. “I would say the Middle East is the bellwether region for this,” said Clay Hensley, director of international strategy and outreach at the College Board. “It’s also happening in pan-Asia, within south and central Asia as well in East Asia and the Pacific… but to a lesser degree than in the Middle East.”

Educators and students say a number of factors are driving such regional movement, including an increase in the quality of regional education offered and the rise in the number of Western university branch campuses. In Qatar, for example, Texas A&M, Carnegie Mellon, Northwestern and Georgetown are among a set of prestigious universities with campuses in the nation’s Education City, a compound on the outskirts of Doha that houses a slew of research and educational facilities.

At Georgetown University School of Foreign Service in Qatar, almost 50 out of 250 students are from the Middle East and North Africa, not including students who might be from the region but enroll using second passports, said Joseph Hernandez, director of admissions. He said Egypt and Jordan are the most represented Middle Eastern nations. Some of the students who are interested in Georgetown opt specifically for its Qatar campus because they are interested in the language, politics, economics or history of the region, Hernandez said. For many students it’s also a family decision, with students choosing an American university experience that’s also close to home. While students coming from other countries in the region still have to adjust to Qatar’s singular culture, “it is a closer adjustment, a closer fit in terms of family, religious or societal values, so that also attracts many students here,” Hernandez said.

Mohammed Salem, president of Wollongong University in Dubai, said cultural factors also play an important role in drawing Arab students to the United Arab Emirates, which is home to a growing number of higher education options. The American University of Sharjah, Heriot-Watt University, Middlesex University and New York University all have campuses in the United Arab Emirates. The country has the highest number of branch campuses in the world, and Alpen Capital’s July 2014 Gulf Co-operation Council (GCC) Education Industry report said the U.A.E. is the most developed education market in the region. Students from within the Middle East are increasingly turning to Dubai instead of the United Kingdom for quality education, the report said.

The mall-centered culture of Dubai is not appealing to everyone, but still many students are attracted to study in the emirates. “If you speak about the Arab world, in specific the U.A.E. is the dream country,” said Tamer Elewa, assistant professor in the Faculty of Business at The British University in Dubai. It offers a cosmopolitan experience, cultural similarities and opportunities for students seeking part-time jobs, he said. The Emirates “brings western content into the Middle Eastern context,” he added.

Inter-regional Arab student mobility isn’t new. Traditionally, though, it was mostly characterized by students attending American-style universities—such as those in Cairo and Beirut—that have long-established reputations, said Hensley at the College Board.

At the American University in Cairo, “we use an American-style of higher education, liberal arts, a system of tenured research faculty and so forth, and that has a lot of credibility around the globe,” said Ted Purinton, associate provost for academic administration and international programs there. Other than Egyptian students, of the students enrolled at the AUC who were from the Arab world, the highest percentage during the 2011-2012 academic year were from Saudi Arabia, followed by the Emirates, then Kuwait. The number of students who reside in Saudi Arabia or live there is climbed by nearly 50 percent from eight years earlier, data provided by Purinton showed.

Student movement to some other countries, however, remains limited. Over the last five years only 35 degree-seeking students from Arab and Middle Eastern countries have attended Morocco’s public Al Akhawayn University, which like Cairo’s American university and the American University of Beirut offers American-style education.

If students from developing countries have one opportunity to go abroad, they don’t go to another developing country unless there’s a compelling reason, said Amy Fishburn, director of international programs at the university. “They will go to highly developed countries, and the belief is that they can learn more,” she said. Perhaps underscoring that overall preference, the College Board found that the majority of international students —roughly 75 percent—sent their SAT scores to the U.S. during the period that the Board analyzed.

Yet some students see an advantage in sticking to the region. “Being able to study in a country that is growing—where the economy, the society, is growing—gives insight into a lot of issues I don’t think I would have been aware of if I was in the States,” said Al Kahala, the Syrian student at Carnegie Mellon in Qatar. “For example, I’m doing my research on Islamic finance for my honors thesis,” she said. “I wouldn’t have been aware of the importance of Islamic finance and how it’s a growing trend in the region if I wasn’t here.”

(End of article)

[veiledsentiments]

The vast majority of these students are there for two reasons:

1. Their family can't afford to send them to the US or UK, and they don't have the grades or wasta to get their government to do it.

2. They are female and their family won't allow them to live semi-independently in the West.

VS

[nomad soul]

I guess they're rethinking their previous decision likely due to the cutbacks in KSA's overseas scholarship program...

Top world universities to open branches in KSA
By Sultan Al-Sughair, Arab News | 19 February 2016
Source: http://www.arabnews.com/featured/news/882886

DAMMAM: The Ministry of Education plans to have universities ranked in the top 100 globally to open in the Kingdom, with an announcement on the details to be made within weeks. According to a source at the ministry, who did not want to be named, the institutions would be required to offer courses that produce graduates needed for the country’s development.

There has been a decline in the performance of Saudi public and private universities. The ministry has received dozens of requests from several Arab and foreign universities to open branches in the Kingdom. The source said the universities would be allowed to enter the Saudi market under their own names and teaching staff. Saudi teaching staff would be employed to ensure transfer of skills.

Universities that are eligible must be ranked in the top 100 globally, with the same curricula taught by the parent institution. In addition, they must teach Islamic studies and Arabic. The institutions must also abide by the customs and traditions of the country and provide separate sections for men and women students.

(End of article)