Abstract
This compilation of articles edited by Gari Donn and Yahya Al Manthri is a new addition to the scarce literature about recent educational reform models in the Broader Middle East: Palestine, Pakistan, Oman, Turkey and Qatar. Nine chapters falling into 206 pages all discuss the idea of policy-borrowing to meet the requirements and the pressure of international organizations to reform education in the Middle East.
Despite the fact that each chapter talks about a different experience in a different context, all seem to address the same issue and arrive at similar conclusions. All authors in one way or another discuss educational reform that was mandated by external international organizations in order to increase achievement as a way of improving the country’s economic situation and preparing its citizens for the labour market and the country for the ‘knowledge economy’. They seem to agree that imported reform models from the ‘centre’ countries to the ‘periphery’ would necessarily mean adopting new policies and different social structures as a means of meeting the needs of this semi-coerced change. This emerging global education policy, which started to be considered as ‘educational best practice’, is governed by global comparative indices such as Education for All (EFA) targets, Millennium Development Goals (MDG) targets and performance on international performance tests, such as PISA and TIMMS. In many cases these reform programmes have been tried unsuccessfully in the ‘West’ and are imported to developing ‘third world’ countries at a high price. In other words these countries have become a ‘baroque arsenal’ of Western educational goods, services and practices.
In Chapter 2 Sajid Ali talks about education policy-borrowing in Pakistan. In particular he discusses the public–private partnership (PPP) of some prominent public programmes. The idea of public–private partnership reflects the hybrid governance arrangement between various state and non-state actors over a number of educational development initiatives in the country. Most of these programmes are addressing access issues in deprived communities and segments of the population such as girls. In his chapter Ali tries to verify the importance of this PPP and to determine if this policy-borrowing has achieved what it claims, or if it has led to educational apartheid. He raises many questions, the most prominent among them being if this PPP is a step towards complete privatization?, and to whom would the private or semi-private educational institutes answer. Ali concludes that the ideological paradigm has several strands that touch upon the policies of decentralization, privatization, community involvement and good governance.
Mohammed Alrozzi in Chapter 3 discusses the politics of foreign aid and policy-borrowing in Palestine. After a comprehensive background regarding the education system in Palestine and the emergence of its first ever Ministry of Education, the author discusses the effects of globalization on the Palestinian education system. As a poor developing country that lacks sovereignty, the intervening, modeling or forming of the education system and policies has been strongly affected by globalization. The high level of dependence on foreign aid gave the donors great influence in forming national policies, and in setting agendas and decision making, which was translated into policy-borrowing. The borrowed rhetoric of the knowledge-based economy was the basis of educational reform. Alrozzi in this chapter gives several examples of policy-borrowing in technical and vocational education and training (TVET). Unfortunately, the author argues that very little has been achieved in this area. He believes that adopting global trends often undermines the local. Global standardization may not be suitable for the current Palestinian case. He warns policymakers that the policy-borrowing approach may threaten equal opportunity and lead to greater social, political and economic inequality – especially when there does not seem to be enough voluntarism in purchasing the educational packages. In fact Alrozzi in this chapter confirms that it makes more sense to have national control of education policies.
In Chapter 4 Brooke Barnowe-Meyer discusses the Qatar experience with its K–12 public school system reform. The imported model of the American charter schools system was borrowed by RAND and introduced to the Supreme Education Council of Qatar. ‘Education for a New Era’ was the slogan for this project; the end result was the independent schools system. This model was introduced by RAND as ‘best practice’, but the author argues that there is little evidence to suggest that charter schools are indeed examples of best practice. Barnowe-Meyer presents the results of a comprehensive evaluation of implementation, curriculum development, classroom pedagogy, professional development, teacher satisfaction, parental involvement, school autonomy and accountability. At the end of this chapter the author concludes that Qatar may indeed be saddled with an outdated and intensely baroque system antithetical to the nation’s hopes and potential for true reform.
Tanya Kane in Chapter 5 talks about higher education in Qatar, asking whether an imported or borrowed US medical school breaks the baroque arsenal in this country. Kane seems to hold a different view from the other authors in this book. She believes that this model is far from the ‘baroque’. She defines this experience as a ‘cross border’ institutional development which can be considered as an innovative educational reform. Qatar Foundation, Education City, which was established to invest in human capital, has chosen to participate with an elite Western institution – the US Weill Cornell Medical College – to import cutting edge knowledge and best educational practice in what seems to be introducing a new model for the Middle East. This model has allowed non-conventional academic institutions to access the resources and pedagogy of world-renowned centres of learning remotely. This encouraged the emergence of new academic providers and a greater mobility of educational programmes. The author does not see this partnership between Weill Cornell and the Qatar Foundation as a process of exporting knowledge from the US core to the periphery, but rather sees the Qatar Foundation experience as a different one. She claims that Qatar state is not aiming to produce neoliberal subjects trained for employment in global knowledge-driven economies. Rather, citizens are being presented with opportunities to equip themselves with specific skills in order to participate in the development of a domestic knowledge-based economy. In this, Qatar Foundation aims to produce a small elite stratum of western-trained medical personnel who will assume leadership positions in their medical system to nationalize it and to halt its dependence on expatriates. In this the Qataris are recruiting internationally renowned universities to create a solid foundation upon which to base future education and research rather than borrowing education policies and adjusting accordingly.
Sana Al Balushi and David Griffiths discuss the Omani educational reform system in Chapter 6, comparing the educational reform to tidal waves. They identify three distinct waves: the 1970s (‘the borrowing stage’), the mid-1990(s) (‘the developing stage’) and from 2010 to the present day (‘the collaborating phase’). In this chapter they try to examine the impact of each of these tidal waves of international influence in the context of educational reform in Oman. They eventually conclude that the recent decision to move to a new third ‘collaborating’ phase is an attempt to put the processes in place that will sustain change so that improvement is continued over the longer term. This conclusion came after examining the effect of long years of importing theories and standardization of teaching and learning. These borrowed standards did not seem to work out. The Omani decision-makers moved to believe that any educational reform would necessarily be relying on the creation of professional communities of teachers and schools rather than on borrowing the ‘baroque arsenal’. The Ministry is now replacing the imported standards and practice by developing capacity within schools themselves and enabling them to become self-critical and self-evaluators.
In Chapter 7 Özlem Yazlik examines the international influences on adult literacy and basic education (ALBE) in Turkey. As in other neighboring countries, international/Western influences have impacted strongly upon various Turkish governments’ approaches to literacy. The Turkish government definition of literacy does not shy away from borrowing the Western link between literacy and socio-economic development. The policy context in Turkey is still dominated by this link. The author believes this is a pity, believing the ALBE programs have suffered from a narrow focus as they treat potential participants as an undifferentiated group of people with deficiencies, and ignore or undervalue their life experience. The author even goes as far as to consider this field to be under attack from neoliberal policies of marketization and privatization of education, leading to further inequalities in access to education and literacy in Turkey. In this chapter Yazlik urges the decision makers to challenge this model with insights from modern literacy practices that involve a lot more than employment-related literacy programs. She advocates for the creation of new courses which validate peoples’ existing cultural knowledge and literacy practices; a more personal, more critical and more respectful type of literacy.
The last two chapters of the book discuss two distinct phenomena that have a major effect on higher education in the Broader Middle East. Salha Abdullah Issan discusses the inclusion of females at all levels of education and the inclusion of more males in higher education in all six GCC states. It seems that in Oman and all Gulf States, as well as in Pakistan, more women than men are enrolled in higher education. On the other hand, access and opportunity in schooling and higher education for women remain problems, and a clear disparity between women and men remains. This gender issue is a major factor hindering these countries from developing the knowledge economy. Although the governments in these countries are trying to bridge the gender gap in education, nevertheless disparities in access and opportunity remain a challenge for women in the Broader Middle East.
Jane Knight talks about cross-border education in the Gulf countries as another widespread phenomenon affecting higher education. In this chapter, Knight gives a definition of cross-border education (transitional education), trying to differentiate it from internationalism, borderless education and offshore education. The author talks about three generations of transitional education: people mobility, programme and provider mobility, and educational hubs. After thoroughly discussing each cross-border generation and the types that fall under each of them, she presents an analysis of cross-border approaches and activities in each of the six countries of the Gulf. In this chapter Knight warns that while the benefits of cross-border education can be numerous, there are also risks and unintended consequences such as brain drain, commercialization, elitism, cultural tensions, dependency, a potential increase in low quality programs, a potential decrease in public funding, and non-sustainable foreign provision of higher education – among many other rising issues.
I found this book to be very informative and addressing vital issues pertaining to the educational reform programmes in the Broader Middle East. Chapter 1, authored by the editors, provides an eloquent summary of the edited chapters. All eight chapters are well written, well referenced and well researched. The book is a good read for educators, policymakers and researchers interested in educational reform in this geographical area.