Bulletin: Birzeit U. Criticises Student’s Arrest; Morocco Wants More Graduates of Digital Fields
Our Editorial Priorities
In our new bulletin, Al-Fanar Media brings you our most prominent stories and news about higher education in the Arab world.
Since we were founded, Al-Fanar Media team has placed higher-education issues at the top of its priorities, besides working to provide other information that serves the needs of Arab academics, students, researchers, civil society, and decision-makers.
Our website also seeks to always remain a destination for those interested in learning about the conditions of higher education in the Arab world from outside the Arab region.
Therefore, we aim to provide world-class content, giving readers a journey-like experience from the pre-university stage to the labour market, with the goal of helping our followers make sound decisions at the academic and professional levels.
Every time you browse our website, you will find topics on the skills most needed in the labour market, academic freedom, the impact of artificial intelligence and digitalisation on higher education, climate change, media literacy, and the conditions of higher education in areas of crisis and conflict.
These are our editorial priorities and we continually renew our commitment to them.
Mohammad El-Hawary
Al-Fanar Media Editor-in-chief
From the Region:
Birzeit U. Condemns Violent Arrest of a Student and His Brother
Birzeit University has criticized Israeli forces for the violent arrest of a student and his brother during a raid on their house on Saturday. The university identified the brothers as Mohammed Zuhair Al-Zuhairi, a student at the university’s Faculty of Law and Public Administration, and Ibrahim Al-Zuhairi, a graduate of the university’s media department.
In a statement, the university said that a large group of soldiers blew up the main door of the two brothers’ house, broke inside and destroyed the house’s contents, and beat the two men before arresting them.
Earlier, the Palestinian Ministry of Higher Education issued a statement condemning the occupation forces’ continued violation of the sanctity of Palestinian universities and institutions, as well as other acts of Israeli aggression against Gaza and the West Bank. The ministry renewed its plea for all international legal, humanitarian, and media institutions to demand the abolition of aggressive and criminal occupation practices against Palestinian society, and to ensure the protection of educational institutions.
Morocco Seeks Large Increase in Number of Graduates of Digital Fields
Morocco’s minister of higher education, Abdellatif Miraoui, signed an agreement with other Moroccan government ministers to activate a programme to strengthen the number of graduates of digital fields at Morocco’s public universities.
In a Facebook statement, the minister said that the agreement aims to increase the number of graduates in digital specialisations at 12 public universities from the current 8,000 a year to 22,500 a year by 2027. The agreement includes the creation of new specialisations in fields like digitisation, data analysis, digital technology, cybersecurity, software development, big data, artificial intelligence, and others.
U. of Jordan Business School Obtains International Accreditation
The University of Jordan’s School of Business has been awarded accreditation by AACSB International, a key U.S.-based international accreditation body. The school’s 16 bachelor’s, master’s, and doctoral programmes are now internationally recognized for academic distinction and rigorous programme quality standards.
The university’s School of Business is the first business school among Jordan’s public universities to obtain this international accreditation. In a statement, Professor Ra’ed Masa’deh Bani Yaseen, dean of the school, said international accreditation means that the school has the resources, credentials, and commitment to provide a first-class education with a focus on the future. He pointed out that only 5 percent of business schools worldwide achieve AACSB accreditation.
Umm Al-Qura U. and British Institution to Cooperate on Tourism-Sector Training
Saudi Arabia’s Umm Al-Qura University, represented by the Institute of Research and Consultation Studies, has entered into a partnership with the University of Surrey, in the United Kingdom, to provide training programmes, consultancy services, research, and professional development services in the tourism and hospitality sectors.
According to a statement, this collaboration reflects the educational and research role that Umm Al-Qura University plays through cooperative partnerships with various local and international sectors, contributing to the achievement of its goals in qualifying and developing human capabilities.
AUC Students Win First Place in Arab Fintech Challenge
A student team from the American University in Cairo won first place in the Arab FinTech Challenge for Universities competition for developing “Mini Money”, a smart application for youth about spending and saving.
According to a university statement, the team included Yara Elbeltagi and Malak Elshennawy, both finance students, and Jodi Ali, a business administration and entrepreneurship student. The Mini Money app has a built-in financial wallet that aims to increase youth’s financial literacy and help them make responsible financial decisions and save in unconventional ways. The app also helps parents track their children’s spending.
The Arab FinTech Challenge for Universities competition was held during the GITEX Global 2023 exposition, which took place last month in Dubai.
From Al-Fanar Media:
QS Reimagine Education Awards 2023 to Celebrate a Decade of Educational Innovation
Marking its 10th anniversary, QS Quacquarelli Symonds, a popular source of data on university performers, will hold the QS Reimagine Education Awards & Conference next month. The gathering, sometimes called the “Oscars of education”, will run from December 11 to 13 at Khalifa University in Abu Dhabi. As part of Al-Fanar Media’s media partnership with QS World University Rankings, signed in 2022, Nadia El-Gowely, executive director of Al-Fanar Media, will join the conference as a speaker and a member of the grand jury that will select the winners of two top prizes. Read more in this article.
In Conflict:
University Students in Northwestern Syria Struggle with Costs, Degree Recognition
Amid Syria’s long-running civil war, university students in the country’s opposition-held northwestern region struggle to stay enrolled at higher-education institutions that themselves face huge challenges. Among the most prominent challenges are the lack of international recognition of the universities’ degrees and the cost of attending. Many students’ families cannot afford to pay tuition fees, which are set in U.S. dollars rather than in the Syrian pound. Read more in this article.
Tips and Resources:
Inspiring Talks and Content Platforms for Undergraduate Students
Besides academic achievement, many undergraduate students are preoccupied with their future and developing a life vision. For this it is often useful to learn about others’ experiences and successes, so Al-Fanar Media has researched a list of free video resources and content platforms. We start with a sampling of talks from the popular TED and TEDx conferences that we think students will find inspiring and beneficial, both to cultivate their cognitive skills and to enrich their lives. Explore more in this article.
COP28:
Higher Education Must Play Key Role in Confronting Climate Change, Academics Say
Higher education must play a key role in raising awareness about climate change, Arab academics told Al-Fanar Media in conversations just a few weeks before COP28, the United Nations climate-change summit, is scheduled to open in Dubai on November 30. The Arab region is clearly suffering from the impact of climate change, yet awareness of the challenges and what needs to be done at the state, institutional and individual levels is still limited, they said. Explore more in this article.
Culture:
‘Room 207’ Wins New Fans for Authors of Egyptian Horror Fiction
Based on a novel by the late Egyptian writer Ahmed Khaled Tawfik (1962-2018), the television series “Room 207” is the latest in a string of popular adaptations of Egyptian horror, fantasy, and detective fiction. The show, which topped the most-watched list on the Shahid streaming platform, presents episodes in which characters who stay in a particular hotel room undergo soul-changing experiences. The audience follows the protagonist Gamal, a hotel employee, as he attempts to solve the mystery of Room 207. Explore more in this article.
Opinion:
Tackling Climate Change Through Teaching Environmental History
Can the perspectives of long-gone empires and civilizations contribute to saving the planet today? Jörg Matthias Determann, who teaches history at Virginia Commonwealth University in Qatar, explores the question in an essay for Al-Fanar Media. He notes that the Middle East boasts thousands of years of written records about the management of water from the Nile, Tigris and Euphrates Rivers. How to deal with droughts is thus hardly a new question. Read more of Professor Determann’s thoughts here.
Podcast:
Al-Fanar Media Podcast: ‘Indispensable Sites for University Students’
Al-Fanar Media Podcast posts a new episode every Sunday in which our correspondents across the Arab world tackle various issues of higher education. In one recent episode, we suggest a number of websites where new university students can find resources to help them adjust to and thrive in their new academic setting. You can listen to this episode, and others in the series, on SoundCloud, Spotify, or YouTube.
Scholarships
Al-Fanar Media maintains a database of quality scholarships available to Arab students, which we continuously update. To stay up to date on the latest scholarships available in international universities, check the Scholarships section here, and watch for updated feedback on free learning opportunities in our News and Reports section, here.
