Coed Schools

I happen to meet a person who went to the same school that I went to. We had a chat about various subjects and then he mentioned the fact that he enrolled his son in the same school we both went to because it was right next to house. He pointed, however, one problem for him, our old school has become Coed.

I pointed out to the guy that it is not the horror of horrors he makes it to be. After all, when his kid grows up 12 yrs from now there will be even more women in the work place and in college. So why not have the kid prepared to know how to deal with women.

I am aware of the possible problems of coed schools. However from my point of view, the good outweighs the bad a by a significant margin. In the long run there is some chances that life long friendships might develop between the girls and the boys. I view this as a very positive outcome. Also both the boys and girls would know how to better interact with the opposite sex.

It is worth mentioning that even Arab TV programs portray a society where men and women are not segregated, so why not start with the schools to transform the society.

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.

Education in Jordan

Maybe a couple of months ago, I was reading an article in Jordan Business Magazine about why Jordan should try to go for educational tourism instead of medical or regular tourism. According to the article, students spend 4 years to get their education; therefore, they end up spending significantly more than what people would spend on either medical tourism or regular tourism.

I have no problem with this logic and it does make a lot of sense. My problem, however, is that education in Jordan is still basically crap when compared with the rest of the world.

I spoke to someone who works as a lab teacher in a private university, and he told me horror stories about the quality of education here. For example, one private university kicked out a few students without good reason and they were reinstated by the higher education board.

Public education is not much better either. The fact still remains that not a single university in Jordan, public or otherwise, made it to the top 500 Universities in the world list. Just check the link:

http://ed.sjtu.edu.cn/rank/2006/ARWU2006TOP500list.htm

This is a very sorry state of affairs. If you look at how full of our selves we are about education in Jordan, you would think that half of our universities are in the aforesaid list. But the truth is that not a single one is and we just like to delude ourselves.

I am not sure what the minister of higher education does. But I think someone should tell him about this list and our none-existing presence in it and see what he has to say.

One, final thing, I was very happy to see the University of Cairo making the list. It is probably the only Arab University in the list. Egyptians, keep up the good work.

Not a Joke

This is not joke, but I found out that Sri Lank has a higher literacy rate than Jordan. The difference is less than two percentage points, but still.

Anyway even with a literacy of 89%+, Jordan has a long way to go, because in my own not so humble opinion, at least 25% of those considered "literate" can not do a damn thing with their literacy.

I am not sure who decided on the currently used literacy measures, but I think they need to be tougher by at least another 20 points. The current system, I believe, allows those who are barely literate to pass as literate. The measure does not allow for degrees of differentiation. For example, "barely literate," "Moderately literate," and "Fully literate." In my own opinion at least 25% of the Jordan population does not qualify as literate.

Just like in some other societies, I suggest including computer literacy and basic numeracy under the umbrella of literacy. This of course would be harsh on the Jordanian society, because under these new terms, the literacy would fall down to something like 15-60%. This is fine with me and is much better than deluding our self and being happy with our fake 90% literacy rate.