LIBYA: New era of higher education reform

In a bid to promote human and sustainable development, Libya - the second largest oil producer in Africa - is working to reform its higher education and scientific research systems through a US$9 billion five-year national strategic plan and international cooperation - especially since its positive re-engagement with the international community following renunciation of weapons of mass destruction.

"The main aim of Libya's higher education strategy is to set up a knowledge-based Libyan society and promote science-based industrial development," Gibril Eljrushi, Dean of the engineering faculty at the 7 October University in Misurata, told University World News.

Among the strategy's numerous projects are the establishment of a National Authority for Scientific Research (NASR) and a Centre for Quality Assurance and Accreditation (CQAA), Eljrushi added.

The NASR is intended to create and implement policies related to science, guiding and supporting research and preparing educational programmes in specific scientific fields. To help build scientific capacity, the authority analyses the country's needs and advises government on ways to establish and maintain the necessary number of qualified scientists and the facilities needed to conduct research and teaching.

The authority is also developing scientific standards to measure the quality and innovative nature of scientific research, as well as providing independent advice on matters ranging from ethics to the environment.

The quality assurance centre is concerned mainly with evaluating the academic performance of the education system according to international performance standards. This is intended to strengthen quality and continuously improve the Libyan university system.

"The strategy also includes a $72 million project to use information and communications technologies to reform the higher education and scientific research system, which has the potential to become a model for the proper integration of ICTs in education and science, particularly in African and other developing countries," Eljrushi said.

The project includes establishment of local area networks in 149 faculties on various university campuses and institutes, and of a wide area network forming the Libyan Higher Education and Research Network.

Under the strategic plan, the number of students sent abroad for postgraduate studies will be increased in a bid to prepare the scientific workforce needed for development. Last month, Libya hosted French and British displays on higher education aimed at familiarising students and teachers with opportunities to and requirements for attending French and British universities in their specialised fields.

The two displays were part of higher education cooperation plans signed between Libya and Britain and France in 2007. Under the plans, British experts will help Libyan weapons scientists turn their expertise to radiological medicine and France will help Libya to use nuclear energy for peaceful purposes via a nuclear reactor to provide drinking water through seawater desalination.

The United States-based FAST science diplomacy institute - an international organisation founded by alumni of the Fulbright exchange programme - will hold a conference on US-Libya science and educational exchange from 18-21 May.

The British, French and American collaborations are the latest to reflect a thaw in academic relations between Libya and the West, which began when Libya abandoned its pursuit of nuclear, chemical and biological weapons in 2003.

Ties between the US and Libya were re-established in 2006, after some two decades without diplomatic relations. The first official bilateral science and technology cooperation agreement was signed in February 2008 and is aimed at supporting government-to-government exchanges, scientific partnerships between private, academic and non-governmental entities, and the establishment of science-based industries.

While trade and exchange between the two nations is still small, educational exchange has grown rapidly and last year some 1,000 Libyans were enrolled in US graduate schools. The number is expected to rise to more than 4,000 in the coming years.

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