BRIEFING NOTE
Benchmarking University Governance in MENA PROJECT BACKGROUND
Countries in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) are going through important political transformation at a time when similar economic and social change is taking place worldwide. The recent political changes in MENA give hope that governance across the board in the region will be more democratic, transparent, and efficient in the long term. The Arab Spring made clear that young people in MENA are asking for more and better opportunities to study and work. The unemployment rates of tertiary education graduates from MENA have been persistently higher than from any other region for the past decade, and the recent financial crisis is making this even more critical. In recent years, higher education enrollment in MENA has increased significantly. Average enrollment across the region increased 20 to 30 percent between 2000 and 2008. Despite an increasingly educated population of young people, youth unemployment rates in MENA are higher than any other region in the world – 21 percent in the Middle East and 25 percent in North Africa – and university graduates with at least an associate’s degree make up nearly 30 percent of the unemployed. University governance – how universities and higher education systems define and implement their goals, manage their institutions, and monitor their achievements – is an area of focus in tertiary education reform worldwide. The key role that university governance plays in the improvement of
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