The Program team is composed of international researchers and world‐class experts on the governance, internationalization, and financing of higher education institutions, who work with university presidents and ministries of education, higher education, and finance in the Middle East and North Africa. Partner institutions include the French Development Agency (AFD), the Organisation for Economic Co‐operation and Development (OECD), the Arab Network for Quality Assurance in Higher Education (ANQAHE), the International Comparative Higher Education Finance and Accessibility Project, the State University of New York (SUNY), the Graduate School of Education at the University of Pennsylvania, the Mediterranean Universities Union (UNIMED), the Higher Education and Scientific Research at the Union for the Mediterranean, and the Arab League Educational, Cultural, and Scientific Organization (ALECSO).
PUBLICATIONS: • Internationalization of Higher Education in MENA: Policy Issues Associated with Skills Formation and Mobility (World Bank) • Breaking Even or Breaking Through: Reaching Financial Sustainability While Providing High Quality Standards in Higher Education in the Middle East and North Africa (AFD/World Bank)
CONTACT US: For more information, please visit us online:
www.cmimarseille.org/selm2.php
Email our Program staff: Program Leader: Adriana Jaramillo, Senior Education Specialist, World Bank ajaramillo@worldbank.org Jennifer Barry, Consultant, World Bank jbarry@worldbank.org Silvia Marchionne, Consultant, World Bank smarchionne@worldbank.org
University Governance and Quality Assurance
WHO WE ARE:
A Partnership of THE WORLD BANK and the MARSEILLE CENTER FOR MEDITERRANEAN INTEGRATION
The University Governance and Quality Assurance Program stems from a partnership between the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) Human Development Department of the World Bank and the Marseille Center for Mediterranean Integration. Its purpose is to address insufficient access to higher education, inconsistent quality of higher education institutions across the region, and discrepancies between graduates’ skills and the skills demanded by the labor market.
THE CONTEXT:
The “Arab Spring” of 2011 brought international attention to long‐building frustrations and resentment in MENA. Citizens of Egypt, Tunisia, Libya, Syria, Yemen, and other regional neighbors protested and demonstrated against poverty, unemployment, and other social issues. Young people especially sought a greater role in their governments and demanded reform. Higher education facilitates economic growth and encourages innovation, social mobility, and democracy. It is good news for the region, then, that enrollment in higher education in the MENA has been increasing significantly: Average enrollment across the region increased 20 to 30% between 2000 and 2008. Despite this increase, however, there is still a gap compared to other, developed countries.
MEETING THE CHALLENGE: The Program works to respond to these issues by collaborating with world experts as well as partners on the ground – university presidents and ministries of education, higher education, and finance. Its goals are to improve the employability of higher education graduates; facilitate the mobility of students, teachers, and graduates across the region; develop analytical tools to improve the management and quality of tertiary education; and promote knowledge sharing on quality, governance, and financing issues. There are three ongoing projects within the Program: 1) Improve University Governance so that programs can better match market needs and graduate students with needed skills. This project has the participation of over 40 universities from four countries in a benchmarking exercise using a University Governance Screening Card. In Abu Dhabi in December 2011, the Screening Card was endorsed as a Regional Arab League Initiative at a biannual conference for Arab world ministers of higher education, and the Screening Card is currently being implemented in Algeria, Iraq, and Lebanon.
These increases in student enrollment in the region yield increasing stress on education quality as well as increasing pressure on already‐scarce public finances, a situation exacerbated by the global economic crisis. MENA countries already invest more of their GDP in education on average than other countries of similar per capita income, but their expenditures per student lag behind their OECD counterparts. Expenditures in research and development are also much lower in MENA than in OECD countries: On average, MENA countries spend 0.39% of GDP on R&D, while the OECD average is four times that, 1.84% of GDP. Further, although more students are graduating from higher education institutions, these credentials alone are not enough: the labor market must have the flexibility to expand and adapt to accommodate the changing work force. In MENA, despite Youth Unemployment Rates (%) the availability of more skilled workers, the job market has remained limited, and graduates from higher education institutions constitute a larger proportion of the unemployed population than those of faster growing economies. Youth unemployment rates in MENA are higher than any other region in the world – 21% in the Middle East and 25% in North Africa. University graduates with at least an associate’s degree make up nearly 30% of the unemployed.
2) Seek Financial Sustainability in higher education so that higher education institutions can meet growing student demand. In partnership with the French Development Agency, the Program held a workshop in January 2011 and launched a final report, Breaking Even or Breaking Through, in October 2011. 3) Internationalize Higher Education to improve the skills and employability of students and raise the research and innovation capacity of institutions so that individuals with relevant skill sets choose to stay in, work in, and contribute to the MENA region rather than emigrate to faster growing economies. A report was released in September 2011 and a regional conference is scheduled for Spring 2012.