Education in Jordan, part 2

This a follow up to my previous blog post.

I was thinking about what Jordan needs to do to improve the university level college education. Here is what I think should be done:

• Performance evaluation of professors by students based on which the university decides if he should go or should stay; get a raise or a salary reduction.
• If a professor has a high student failure rate for example more than 25% he should get the pink slip.
• English should be the official language of education in all public and private universities. After all, we live in a globalized world whose lingua franca is English and not Arabic. This will also help Jordan export labor to countries other than the gulf, for example Ireland, Australia, Canada and other places in need of English speaking skilled labor.
• Pay attention to world wide university rankings and try to move up the ranks.
• Professors should be hired with at least 4 years of industry experience, where applicable, to ensure they are not so far away from reality and more on the practical side.
• At least 20% of university professors should get their PhDs from the Top 500 universities world wide.
• At least 20% of University professors should be USA, UK or Ireland natives. This will ensure that students are exposed to a different kind of teaching. I know this will cost Jordan a lot, but nothing is for free.
• Courses for each discipline should be checked for their relevance to the real world applications for the field of study. I know some courses have to be taken just for the sake of maintaining accreditation, but still, the content should be improved as much as possible so that it is more on the practical side.
• Professors should be certified in training (training of trainers). This is somewhat different from education, but it does make things a bit more practical.
• Yes, more funding for research and for the universities in general, but this should not come from increasing education fees or from higher taxes.
• More scholarships.