MIDDLE EAST: Focus turns to higher education

Recent upheavals in the Middle East and North Africa can be traced largely to the region's youth - millions of young people facing widespread unemployment and seeing a dearth of opportunities ahead of them. Now, academics are seeking to focus on the role that higher education can play to address their concerns, and the crucial steps that officials need to take to achieve this, like engaging with institutions outside the region, standardising curricula and finding alternative sources of financing, writes Sara Hamdan for The New York Times.

"It is likely that the Arab Spring will certainly affect the governance system of higher education, probably in the direction of more independence, participation and partnerships," said Rajika Bhandari, deputy vice-president of research and evaluation at the Institute of International Education.

The institute presented its new report on the region, Classifying Higher Education Institutions in the Middle East and North Africa: A pilot study, at the World Innovation Summit for Education in Doha, Qatar. The two-year study includes research on 300 higher education institutions in Jordan, Lebanon, Morocco, Saudi Arabia, Tunisia, Qatar and the United Arab Emirates.
Full report on the New York Times site