Improving the Quality of Higher Education in the Middle East and North Africa

The University Governance Program aims to improve the quality of tertiary education and related institutions in MENA countries.  Achieving this goal means improving the financial situation of universities to meet the needs of students, internationalizing higher education, facilitating the inter-regional mobility of graduates, enabling university governance by improving management skills, and matching programs to the needs of the market,writes the Marseille Centre for Mediterranean Integration (CMI)..

Despite the availability of skilled workers, the labor market remains limited in the MENA region.  The rate of youth unemployment in the region is higher than in any other region - 21 percent in the Middle East and 25 percent in North Africa - and university graduates with at least a basic level of qualification constitute nearly 30 percent of the unemployed.  The University Governance Program works with universities as a force for social and economic change.

According to World Bank Director for Human Development in the MENA region, Steen Jorgensen, "International experience shows that independence in academic decision-making is an essential element of innovation, knowledge-generation, and the ability to excel."

The Program, which began in 2009, developed a University Governance Screening Card, in order to evaluate the governance strategies employed by higher education institutions.  This tool enables institutions working in the MENA region to compare themselves to their counterparts around the world and to monitor the progress of their governance practices over time, in order to, in part, assess the overall performance of their education system.  The Screening Card was tested during a pilot phase from June 15 to August 31, 2011 on a sample of 40 universities from Egypt, Morocco, Palestine (West Bank and Gaza Strip), and Tunisia.  The 40 universities were then invited to attend a workshop in Cairo, Egypt on November 19 and 20, 2011, organized by the World Bank, CMI, and the Egyptian Ministry of Higher Education, to discuss the preliminary Screening Card results, validate the tool for use with universities from other countries and regions, and agree on next steps for implementing governance reforms.

In Abu Dhabi in December 2011, the benchmarking tool was approved as a Regional Initiative of the Arab League.  It will be developed in partnership with other regional organizations such as ALECSO and the Islamic Development Bank, as well as with relevant national university governance institutions.

Ministers of higher education in Algeria, Bahrain, Iraq, Lebanon, and Sudan also expressed their interest in joining the University Governance Program.  The program expansion to Algeria, Iraq, and Lebanon will be validated by June 2012.

On February 1, 2012 a workshop was held in Lebanon, attended by the Minister of Higher Education, to present the detailed Screening Card, its methodology, and the preliminary results gathered from the universities from the first four participating countries.  A second conference will take place on February 26, 2012 in Algiers.