Gulf Conference On Higher Education in the GCC
- Dates:
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- 13 Nov 2007 - 13 Nov 2007
Date: 13 November 2007
Venue: The School of Oriental and African Studies
Thornhaugh Street,
Russell Square,
London,WC1H 0XG
“HIGHER EDUCATION IN THE GULF COOPERATION COUNCIL (GCC) STATES:
APPROACHES TO BUILDING ECONOMIES, SOCIETIES AND NATIONS”
A one-day conference organised by the London Middle East Institute on 13 November 2007 at the School of Oriental and African Studies, Thornhaugh Street, Russell Square, London, WC1H 0XG.
Nowhere in the world is higher education expanding as rapidly as it is in the six member states of the Gulf Cooperation Council (Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Bahrain, UAE, Oman and Qatar). In two generations the region has gone from having the Middle East’s least well-educated population to having a younger generation whose educational achievements are approaching those of Western countries.
Yet there has been a growing awareness by GCC decision makers of challenges confronting higher education and alternative ways of dealing with these. One such challenge has been to link higher education more effectively to job markets and economies in general. The paradox of having unemployed graduates in the world’s most rapidly growing economies - ones that are attracting employees from around the world - is one that many GCC countries face. The task of re-orienting employment for university graduates from the public to the private sector challenges the entire GCC. The need to produce graduates who are globally competitive in skills and dedication is now keenly felt throughout the region.
Higher education’s role in shaping the beliefs, attitudes and behaviour of young adults is a determining one for the future of societies and the way they are governed. This raises questions about what sort of societies and systems of government are wanted by those making tertiary educational policy. At one end of the spectrum are educational approaches intended to maximise global integration of GCC students, at the other are those designed to enrich and preserve local values. The former approach supports the transition to more liberal societies, the latter reflects a desire to perpetuate existing traditional societies.
GCC countries also face many questions about the way their tertiary education operates, not least how they are to achieve the best mixes of public and private as well as foreign and domestic universities. Increasingly those mixes have become more complex as a result of partnerships between local and external institutions and involvement by private interests in universities supported by public funds. Finding optimal mixes between internal capacity building and sending students abroad is another challenge GCC governments face.
Not surprisingly each GCC country has devised its own, distinctive approach, which provides an interesting opportunity to investigate comparative public policy in a defined setting. The feedback from that investigation might even be of use to decision makers in the region. For this reason - and because of their direct knowledge of the subject - policy makers from the six GCC countries will be key participants in the conference, along with experts in higher education.
The conference will investigate how the different GCC states are responding to the challenges of shaping higher education to meet economic, social and political objectives. It will do so by providing an overview of the current state of tertiary education in the Gulf, by identifying its common objectives and specifying the policy choices and issues involved with the implementation of those objectives. It will conclude by examining how different GCC states have constructed policy mixes for their tertiary educational sectors.
Prospective participants can register to attend by contacting Louise Hosking, Executive Officer, London Middle East Institute, tel: 020 7898 4330, email: lh2@soas.ac.uk. Tickets £10, concessions £5. Free entry for students. For more information about the LMEI visit www.lmei.soas.ac.uk and to see the agenda, please click here.
