TOWARDS THE ISLAMIC HIGHER EDUCATION AREA

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TAKING UP THE CHALLENGES IN A GLOBALISED WORLD

GENERAL INTRODUCTION

World higher education has been experiencing major evolution since the last quarter of the past century. This evolution has been paramount in the developing nations for two main reasons: the surge of higher education enrollment demands and the job market needs for professionally qualified graduates. This evolution has been amplified by the globalization expansion and the exponential development of the Information and Communication technology.

Countless international, regional and national conferences, seminars, workshops, experts meetings and other types of gatherings have been organized to examine the issues raised by this rapid evolution and to formulate relevant recommendations  and guidelines as how to reform current national higher education system to make it satisfactorily respond to national needs and adequately fit with the current international development trends.

National higher education authorities  the world over have been and still are under high social, economical and political pressure to devise their appropriate higher education system that while preserving national identities and values will adequately interact with the international development trends and the globalization of the economy.

This pressure is aggravated by the rapid expansion of the transborder higher education particularly in the developing countries.

Frequently, these authorities turned to bilateral and multilateral cooperation for particular assistance in putting up most of the national reform projects.

It is widely recognized that the needed reforms are global in scope and academically, socially, financially and politically complex. Thus it was both critical and advisable to exchange views, experiences and methods with partner countries involved in similar types of reforms in order to better comprehend the full scope of the undertaking and provide appropriate answers. It was also useful to be fully informed about the various recommendations and guidelines developed by renowned international organizations such as UNESCO, ISESCO, ALECSO, WB, OECD and others.

Regional organizations were generally called upon for specific aspects particularly those related to common interest, identities and cultures. In this regard there were Islamic conferences, Arab conferences, OECD Conferences, and European Union Conferences to name only a few.

CHAPTER 1: WORLD HIGHER EDUCATION MAIN CHARACTERISTICS

1.1 International higher education development trend

The higher education development trend, throughout the world, is globally characterized by:

·      A surge in university enrollment demands in both industrialized and developing Countries. This surge is however much more pronounced in developing countries due to their current low university access rates that range roughly between 5 and 12 % while this rate is higher than 70 % in most industrialized countries. The Islamic countries fall in the fist category.

·       Public university enrollment capacities are leveling off due to continuously declining per student public funding and limited national infrastructures. Under social pressure, public universities are however urged to increase their student enrollments while their infrastructures and faculties remain unchanged. This higher education massification policy and practices have led definitely to lower quality trainings, lesser content diversification, and slower curricula renewal and innovation.

·       The limited and only public funding policy of higher education when applicable could not provide appropriate allocation for retraining the trainers and curricula reviewing so that public universities can periodically update their curricula and teaching methods. This situation has progressively led to outdated training contents and practices. With the advent of the knew technologies, the rapid globalization expansion and the emerging of new types of jobs, both academics and higher education authorities have come to publicly admit the existing wide gap between the universities trainings and the job market needs. This gap has been amplified by the rapidly changing job market qualification requirements. It is not uncommon nowadays to hear the business industry complaining about the lack of university trained work force while some jobless university graduates are desperately looking for employment. 

·      A marked shortage of qualified teachers particularly in new disciplines such as ICT, off shoring industries and services, back office activities, biotechnology, nanotechnology, mechatronics to name only the mostly known.

·       A transborder for- profit higher education is being developed at high pace particularly in the area where the job market is promising and when the cost of training can be kept low. This seems to be the case for management and communication trainings for which infrastructures and equipments are not capital intensive.

·       The transborder higher education opportunities are potentially much higher in the developing countries where current higher education access rates are very low and the demand for higher education is constantly going up.

·      Transborder higher education is offered under various forms: branch universities, open universities, joint provisions with local institutions or distance e-learning provisions. All these types of provisions are of major concern to the host countries and to the international organizations such as UNESCO, ISESCO, ALECSO regarding their international provisions quality and the recognition of their degrees and qualifications.

·      The first global forum on International Quality Assurance, Accreditation and the Recognition of Qualifications  organized in 2002 by UNESCO was intended “to respond to emerging ethical challenges and dilemmas as a result of globalization and as a reaction to growing demands by the international community that UNESCO takes a more proactive role related to the impact of globalization on higher education, in particular to the prospective liberalization of trade in educational services through the General Agreement on Trade in Services (GATS) established under the WTO”

·      Some of the stakeholders of higher education that attended the forum contended that “education is not a tradable commodity, and that higher education should remain a public good and a public responsibility. GATS is perceived as a threat to national sovereignty and culture and as a serious attack on the core values of the university and the quality of teaching”.

1.2 Transborder higher education issues

The main issues raised today by the development of transborder higher education, which is essentially for profit, are summarized hereafter:

·      Transborder Higher education provisions are offered by individual higher education institutions regardless of the specific needs and priorities of the host countries. These curricula rather replicate programmes of providers’ home institutions and countries.

·      These provisions are limited in scope and concern essentially disciplines on high demand. The bulk of these provisions is formed by the disciplines of management, communication, computer science and ICT.

·      The traditional academic community is rather concerned about the quality of these provisions and also their quality assurance mechanisms, certifications and degrees. The concern is particularly acute when the delivery is essentially or fully based on e-distance learning practices.

·      Cultural specificity and identity of host country are not or at best insufficiently taken into account in the transborder provisions. The pedagogy, curricula contents and context are not always consistent with the country cultural environment nor are the means and ways of delivery.

·      Training programmes rather correspond to providers’ offers and contents availability. They are not necessarily well aligned with the specificity, needs and priority of the host countries.

·      The intensive use of ICT is rather aimed at lowering delivery costs and maximizing returns without due consideration to national or institutional infrastructures capacities and humane resources capabilities of the host country. The needed local human resources are not appropriately prepared before embarking on such a high technology type of delivery.

·      There exist no internationally recognized accrediting agencies to assess and guaranty the quality of provisions, the qualifications acquired and the degrees offered by these transnational higher education providers.

·      For profit transborder higher education is perceived as an international educational and cultural invasion. In deed, targeted countries have no direct effective academic control over it. Furthermore the use of ICT in the distance delivery reduces further national higher education authorities control over curricula development, program contents, teaching practices and degrees granting. Often, when providers are not granted national authorization, they delocalize administratively unauthorized activities while maintaining authorized infrastructures, personnel and students as joint ventures with national partners.

These sensitive issues have been and still are raised in various gatherings dedicated to this subject matter. Relevant useful recommendations and guidelines particularly those developed by UNESCO and OECD are presented in the next paragraphs.

1.3 General recommendations, guidelines and measures

Ministerial conferences, international forums, specific seminars and workshops that focused on the transborder higher education contributed significantly to the formulation of a set of useful guidelines and practical measures worth considering when dealing with this subject matter. The most important of them are reformulated hereafter:

·      National higher education authorities’ missions should be reviewed and readjusted in order to update them in the light of the world major changes occurring in the higher education policy, funding, strategy and implementation. The mission redefinition will encompass academic, leadership, administrative and financial aspects in order to make national strategy and objectives coherent with the new international development framework;

·      Adaptation of existing  regulations and elaboration of new ones so that national higher education system will  better fit with the globalization spirit, momentum, standards  and  mechanisms;

·      Elaboration of relevant curricula to provide trainings aligned on national and global job market requirements and evolution. These curricula should give due consideration to the importance of  ICT and be conducive to  the development of  knowledge based society and economy;

·      Increasing public funding to adequately respond to raising national university enrollment demands both quantitatively and qualitatively ;

·      Encouraging , within a nationally oriented strategy and a well defined framework, other higher education providers such as reliable national and international private providers;

·      Devising, developing and implementing relevant national, regional and international regulations, procedures, good practices and independent bodies for formal evaluation and  accreditation and for recognition of qualifications and degrees;

·      Setting up networks of national and regional universities to promote general academic cooperation; exchanges of experts , particular resources and  quality curricula; and exchange of experiences in the area of  efficient institutional management and leadership;

·      International organizations and agencies such as UNESCO, ISESCO, ALECSO, COL, AUPELF, WB and OECD organized or  sponsored a series of experts meetings, seminars, workshops, forums and international conferences to :

Ø Promote stakeholders’ and experts’ brainstorming on this far reaching issue;

Ø Develop a better understanding of and an appropriate interaction with the major changes induced by the internationalization of higher education momentum.

Ø Foster exchanges, gather expertise and elaborate relevant recommendations and guidelines for both national and transnational higher education provisions and the recognition of their degrees and qualifications.

CHAPTER 2: ISESCO HIGHER EDUCATION GLOBAL INITIATIVES

In the higher education domain, ISESCO has taken a set of important and relevant initiatives to assist and accompany member states in their efforts to advance their education system in general and their higher education in particular. In this regard it is worth noting the following important initiatives:

·      The creation of the Federation of Universities of Islamic Word (FUIW) to promote university cooperation between member state universities in all areas of higher learning. FUIW with its comprehensive organization and network is currently playing a recognized role in the advancement of the higher education systems of the Islamic World.

·      The Islamic Body for Quality and Accreditation (IBQA), a key instrument in the policy and strategy of maintaining, providing and developing quality higher education. Furthermore IBQA can significantly contribute to the development /improvement of accreditation’s criteria, procedures and good practices in the member states. As it can lend its expertise, organization and developed good practices for the recognition of higher education degrees and qualifications, especially in the case of transnational higher education provisions.

·      The organization, in the recent past, of three major Islamic Conferences of Ministers of Higher Education and Scientific Research dedicated to majors issues facing the higher education systems of the Islamic Countries. The resolutions, recommendations and guidelines of these conferences are particularly useful to member state countries and other nations as well. These conferences offered not only invaluable forums for the Islamic Countries to address issues relating to their highly specific values and identity but also to suggest relevant ways and means to efficiently deal with these issues;

CHAPTER 3: UNESCO QUALITY HIGHER EDUCATION INITIATIVES

3.1 Organisation of Three Global Forums

UNESCO organized three global forums on he globalization of higher education:

·      The First Global Forum (2002) focused on Globalization and Higher Education. This Global Forum was further to an Experts Meeting on the Impact of Globalization on Higher Education (2001)

·      The Second Global Forum (2004) focused on Widening Access to Quality Higher Education and on capacity building.

·      The Third Global Forum (2007) focussed on International Quality Assurance, Accreditation and the Recognition of Qualifications.
The details of the thee forums are exhaustively reproduced in the following sections because they are highly useful for the organization and implementation of the Islamic Higher Education Area.

3.2 The First Global Forum

·      Context and objectives

The context and objectives of this first forum are particularly important because they stress the importance of the issues and the keen interest of the stakeholders. They are exhaustively reproduced hereafter:

Ø The Global Forum was launched as part of UNESCO<$#$>s mission "to respond to emerging ethical challenges and dilemmas as a result of globalization" and as a reaction to growing demands by the international community that UNESCO takes a more proactive role related to the impact of globalization on higher education, in particular to the prospective liberalization of trade in educational services through the General Agreement on Trade in Services (GATS) established under the WTO.

Ø In the heated debates worldwide there is a growing polarization between the education and the trade communities.

Ø Some of the stakeholders of higher education, the teachers<$#$> unions and the students being the most vocal, followed by institutions, consider that education is not a tradable commodity, and that higher education should remain a public good and a public responsibility.

Ø  GATS is perceived as a threat to national sovereignty and culture and as a serious attack on the core values of the university and the quality of teaching.

Ø Trade promoters, on the other hand, try to point to its benefits - competition, motivation for traditional institutions to innovate, establishment of professional networks, providing enhanced opportunities for access to higher education etc.

Ø Preserving the quality of higher education and protecting/empowering the learner become key issues in response to this phenomenon.

Ø UNESCO is well positioned to overcome this conflict and provide some common ground, primarily by providing a platform for dialogue. It has its normative instruments as a legal framework for action.

Ø Reinforcing, revising and updating the existing conventions on the recognition of studies, for instance, could provide an international qualifications framework - relevant in the context of the GATS debates and

Ø Reinforcing links between recognition of qualifications and quality assurance and accreditation networks could constitute a more acceptable approach to overcoming obstacles in transborder mobility and promoting non-profit internationalization and <$#$>fair trade<$#$>, in the interest of the learners.

·      Agenda and Partners

The First Global Forum on International Quality Assurance, Accreditation and the Recognition of Qualifications in Higher Education (17-18 October 2002, Paris) brought together main stakeholders in higher education including representatives of new providers of higher education.

The agenda of this Global Forum Meeting focused on:

Ø Higher education, globalization and trade in educational services

Ø Feasibility of a code of good/ethical practice on quality assurance, accreditation and the recognition of qualifications; and

Ø Information sharing.

After a two-day debate in plenary, as well as four thematic workshops and four working groups, the Global Forum proposed an Action Plan for UNESCO covering a range of standard-setting, capacity building and clearinghouse activities.

·      Action Plan

The First Global Forum (UNESCO, Paris 17-18 October 2002) proposed an Action Plan for implementation by UNESCO in 2003 – 2005. The proposed Action Plan focussed on:

Ø Updating the regional conventions so that they better respond to the new challenges of a changing higher education environment,

Ø  Capacity building for quality assurance at national and regional levels to ensure the sustainable development of higher education systems

Ø   Developing information tools for students on quality provision of higher education to empower them for informed decision-making

Ø  Developing international guidelines and codes of good practice were proposed to support an international framework for national policy development (such as the UNESCO/OECD Guidelines on Quality for Cross-border Higher Education).

3.3 Second Global Forum

The Second Global Forum on Quality Assurance, Accreditation and the Recognition of Qualifications, held on 28-29 June 2004 at UNESCO Paris focused on:

Ø Widening access to quality higher education;

Ø Standard-setting for a global higher education environment (revised regional conventions; international guidelines and codes of good practice);

Ø Mapping needs for capacity-building for quality assurance regionally; and

Ø Empowering learners for informed decision-making

This meeting aimed to establish a strategy for capacity building and partnerships to support the Action Plan objectives of the Global Forum while taking into account the increasing dimensions of access in the globalized higher education arena.

·      Primary Partners

The primary partners of the Global Forum remain the regional committees for the application of the Conventions, and the UNESCO offices in Bangkok, Beirut, Dakar, CEPES- Bucharest, and IESALC-Caracas.

·      Partnership between UNESCO and OECD

In 2004, a new partnership between UNESCO and OECD was established to elaborate guidelines on ‘quality provision of cross-border higher education’. The main policy objectives of these guidelines are to:

Ø Address the need for learner empowerment;

Ø Ensure the transparency of qualifications to increase their international validity;

Ø Support the development of effective recognition procedures; and

Ø Support international cooperation between national quality assurance and accreditation agencies.

·      Other Partners

The Global Forum also includes partners from:

Ø Other inter-governmental organizations such as the COL, the Council of Europe, and the European Commission

Ø Non-governmental organizations including CHEA, ENQA, EI, EUA, IAU, IAUP, ICDE and INQAAHE,

Ø Other key higher education stakeholders such as student groups, institutions and the private sector.

3.4 Third Global Forum

The third forum took place in Dar Es Salaam, Tanzania (13-15 September 2007). It focussed on:

Ø Cross-border higher education

Ø Distance education

Ø Students

Ø Teacher education

For each of the topics, the forum addressed three aspects: Capacity Building, Clearinghouse and Standard-setting

3.4.1 Cross-Border Higher Education

·      Capacity Building

Ø Establish policy dialogue involving all stakeholders and use tracer studies to bring in external perspectives, training in self evaluation and of peer evaluators.

Ø Provide incentives and sanctions to encourage quality improvement and remind stakeholders of their professional commitments

Ø Support QA agencies and relevant associations and networks of higher education institutions to promote the use of the Guidelines as tools of ‘good practice’

Ø  Assist Small States to develop regional and multi-state solutions for quality assurance

·      Clearinghouse

Ø In cooperation with OECD, enhance Governments’ awareness of the Guidelines. Actions could include drawing attention to the Guidelines by identifying ‘champions/patrons’ for the Guidelines to promote them.

Ø Create a platform/portal to improve information flow and access

Ø Improve cooperation between national QA agencies and higher education institutions through increased dialogue and opportunities for collaboration

·      Standard-setting

Use existing standards, e.g. UNESCO/OECD Guidelines, ENQA Guidelines and Standards, INQAAHE Code of good practice as basis for developing robust QA systems for national and CBHE.

3.4.2 Distance Education

·      Capacity Building

Ø Developing an ODL framework in consultation with Member States to support capacity building at the institutional level

Ø Build capacity for instructional design skills in teaching staff working with open educational resources

·      Clearinghouse

Ø Make information on innovations accessible in different languages. In particular, exchange of information on institutional models and use of different technologies, with a focus on South-South collaboration

Ø Support the sharing of materials concerning quality assurance of distance education

Ø  Facilitate the mobility of students through distance education

Ø  Advocacy to assist institutions in delivering quality programmes within the limits of their financial and human resources capacities.

·      Standard-setting

Develop an ODL framework in consultation with Member States to support capacity building at the institutional level

3.4.3 Students

·      Capacity Building

Capacity building for students to involve them in developing and maintaining the quality of higher education

·      Clearinghouse

Provide access to reliable and transparent information to guide learners in their choices and protect them from low quality provision and disreputable providers (e.g. the UNESCO Portal of Higher Education Institutions, further work on bogus institutions and academic fraud etc.)

3.4.4 Teacher Education

·      Capacity Building

Capacity building to Member States in quality assurance of teacher education

·      Clearinghouse

Convene forums for Member States to exchange experiences in quality assurance of teacher education

·      Standard-setting

Refine UNESCO instruments (Conventions, Guidelines etc.) to include quality assurance of teacher education

CHAPTER4: UNESCO/OECD INITIATIVES

4.1 Guidelines on quality provision

In 2004, a new partnership between UNESCO and OECD was established to elaborate guidelines on quality provision of cross-border higher education. The need for international guidelines at the time where cross-boarder higher education is gaining momentum and concerns are raised as to its quality and its international recognition for the sake of the students considered as consumers having the right to be protected. The following UNESCO/OECD note draws attention to the occurring major changes in international higher education, sets goal and objectives to attend and ways and means to achieve them. All these aspects are particularly relevant to the construction of the Islamic Higher education Area. To this end, they are integrally reproduced after minor presentation adaptations.

4.2 Need for international guidelines

The purpose of this note is to give a brief description of an UNESCO/OECD initiative to develop guidelines on “Quality Provision in Cross-border Higher Education Activities”.

In the context of increasing and new forms of cross-border provision of higher education, there is a need for new international initiatives to enhance quality provision in cross-border higher education at a global level by further strengthening quality assurance, accreditation and recognition of qualifications schemes that already exist at the national level through the development of non-binding guidelines. Such guidelines would not supersede individual countries’ authority to regulate the quality assurance and accreditation of their own higher education system. The endeavour needs to involve the collaboration of both sending and receiving countries of education services in order to reach a global range. UNESCO and OECD have been asked by their respective constituencies to work on the development of such guidelines. This initiative is seen as complementary to, but separate from the ongoing process of the revision of UNESCO Regional Conventions on Recognition of Qualifications.

4.3 Policy objectives for the guidelines

The ongoing work on international quality assurance, accreditation and recognition of qualifications at both the UNESCO and the OECD raises four main policy objectives for the proposed guidelines in cross-border higher education should address:

·      Learners need to be protected from the risks of misinformation, low-quality provision and qualifications of limited validity. Although some students object to being identified as ‘customers’, the term ‘consumer protection’ can be used as an appropriate label for this policy objective.

·      Strong approval, quality assurance and accreditation systems which extend their coverage to cross-border and commercial provision and non-traditional delivery modes, should guarantee that learners are safeguarded from rogue providers and are acquiring qualifications that are meaningful, valid and fairly assessed.

·      Qualifications should be readable and transparent in order to increase their international validity and portability and to ease the work of recognition arrangements and credential evaluators. 

·      Reliable and user-friendly information sources on national education systems and qualification frameworks should enhance the transparency of qualifications and inform their holders of their academic and professional validity in the various national systems.

In an increasingly international professional labour market, qualifications should be recognised internationally with as few difficulties as possible. Given the national and cultural embedding of education, national control over qualifications will remain necessary, making systems of recognition of foreign qualifications indispensable. Recognition procedures should be transparent, coherent, fair and reliable and impose as little burden as possible to mobile professionals.

National quality assurance and accreditation agencies need to intensify their international cooperation in order to increase their mutual understanding. By developing principles of good practice and their own standards of professional quality, agencies should guarantee that they themselves are trustworthy, that rogue accreditors can be identified and that in doing so, an international network of quality assurance can be constructed to safeguard academic standards of provision and qualifications.

4.4 Next Steps

·      Guidelines Goal

In order to reach the policy objectives listed above, countries have invited the UNESCO and OECD Secretariats to work together to develop guidelines on quality provision in cross-border higher education according to the resolution of the 32nd session of the General Conference of UNESCO “Higher Education and Globalisation: Assuring Quality of Global Higher Education and Promoting Access to the Knowledge Society as a Means for Sustainable Development”, on 15 October 2003, and to the decisions taken at the OECD/CERI Governing Board meeting on the 29-30 October 2003 under the agenda item 6 on “Enhancing consumer protection in cross-border higher education”.

The main goal of the guidelines is to promote the design of quality assurance, accreditation mechanisms and recognition of qualifications at the national level that ensure quality provision in the context of internationalisation- for students, in terms both of protection from degree mills and fair recognition of foreign degrees, and for employers, as further consumers of the qualifications.

Such guidelines will list principles guiding actions recommended to governments, higher education providers, as well as quality assurance and accreditation agencies. These would be based on the assumption that countries prefer to have national authority over quality assurance and accreditation issues in their own higher education system. The guidelines will thus be based on mutual trust and respect between the diverse stakeholders involved in national quality assurance and accreditation across countries.

·      Guidelines Preparation and Adoption

The report made available for the OECD/Norway Forum on trade in educational services entitled “Enhancing consumer protection in cross-border higher education: Key issues related to quality recognition of qualifications” provides a catalogue of ideas which might be used in the development of the guidelines. This report has been informed by OECD experts meetings as well as the discussion at the UNESCO Global Forum on International Quality Assurance, Accreditation and the Recognition of Qualifications. The discussions and drafting of the guidelines will need to be carefully coordinated, taking into account all national and international initiatives in the field, including ongoing activities of the Action Plan of the UNESCO Global Forum on International Quality Assurance, Accreditation and the Recognition of Qualifications.

Countries will be invited to nominate a representative to be involved in the elaboration of the guidelines. Furthermore, stakeholders including university associations, student associations, quality assurance and accreditation agencies, as well as professional associations will be invited to take part in the discussion. It is foreseen that the drafting and consultation period of the guidelines will last between 12 and 18 months.

CHAPTER 5: THE ISLAMIC HIGHER EDUCATION

AREA PROJECT