Higher Education in the Arab Region Project
The landscape of higher education in the Arab world has been undergoing profound changes with processes of privatization and globalization creating new institutions and new types of institutions. Universities in the region now include national public universities (which are growing in number and geographical distribution) and private universities (including for profit universities), as well as satellite and branch campuses of Western and Asian universities. Students have more choices than before in pursuing higher education but the cost of such an education is rising, including in the national institutions that, in principle, offer free education.
In addition to institutional changes, the broader roles of universities have been changing over the several decades, and the university has been significant in the events of the various Arab uprisings, especially in Egypt and Tunisia. Historically, universities have played a critical role in political developments in the region, and university actors (particularly students) have been key protagonists in political movements of the 20th century. Secondly, universities have played an important role in the state-building projects of regimes in the region—as systems central to state-citizen social contracts, as well as institutions critical for state-led development efforts. Finally, policies of privatization and neoliberalism have re-configured the field of higher education, and the role of the university as socio-political institution in recent decades.
The Higher Education in the Arab Region Project explores the changing landscape of higher education in the region, focusing on the nature of governance of universities in response to national, regional, and global restructurings, and the degree of autonomy that these universities have from the state, as well as from powerful social classes and groups. This is a joint project between the ACSS and the Middle East and North Africa Program at the Social Science Research Council (SSRC) in New York. A website is in the process of being developed, and will present the research conducted thus far, as well as the documentation of the higher education landscape across the region.
