Mixing the unmixable

Q: What happens when you mix academia, democracy and tribalism?

A: A uniquely Jordanian concoction, that is difficult to describe.

Here is the story. In Jordan, the formula for developing a local community has come to mean establishing a state university somewhere. These universities are not viewed as a source of community development because they are beacons of knowledge, learning, research or innovation. No. They are simply an excuse to hire janitors, gardeners, secretaries and drivers. And, oh yes, faculty members. So the government, under pressure from local MP’s and community leaders, has established a number of universities in areas where unemployment is high. One such university is Tafileh Technical University.

In order to keep up the pretence that such universities are supposed to be real universities, respected academicians are appointed to head them. In the case of Tafileh Tech, Sultan Abu Orabi, a prominent chemist was appointed to head the institution. Of course, this is a problem. Not because he is a bad scientist or administrator. Not because he is bad in dealing with people. The problem is that he is from Salt, not Tafileh. The people of Tafileh view the university as being “theirs”, and it is taken from them by “the other”. Tafileh notables who lobbied to establish this university make no effort at understanding or explaining that the university is a nationally funded institution; that reason and decency require that the best people should be hired there, irrespective of their origin, and that their sons and daughters studying at the university will be better served with competent staff holding responsibility. Now the problems start.

The local community, especially their notables, views the university as being a source of benefits for them and their constituents. Thus, they try to interfere with the hiring policy of the university and even interfere in the academic affairs of the institutions. The president, under the false impression that he should uphold academic standards and fiscal responsibility tries to control the tide of requests. Almost all succumb to the pressure, and all universities are overstaffed with administrative employees who have nothing to do.

But at some point, the president decides he has to say no, raising the fury of the deputies and local leaders.

Apparently, Abu Orabi fired a driver at the university (obviously for a good reason). So, the driver with a group of his relatives crashes the graduation ceremony at the university, assaulting the president and the deputy governor. The police intervene with tear gas, and a large number of people (including Abu Orabi) end up in the hospital.

The police take the fired driver into custody, and under pressure from local MP’s and dignitaries, he is released on bail the same night. Insaf Khawaldeh, a deputy from Tafileh demanded that Abu Orabi should be fired. Here, many people conclude that the driver and his gang didn’t act alone. He wouldn’t dare unless prominent people promised to protect him, which is what happened.

Next, members of the Adwan tribe, to which Abu Orabi belongs, stage an attack on the home of a former Tafileh deputy named Abdallah Akaileh, who they believed was an instigator of the attack on Abu Orabi. They fired about 70 rounds at Akaileh’s house, damaging windows and roof tiles. Fortunately, nobody was hurt. On the other hand, Tafilis in Amman are also rioting over the incident.

It is not clear how this story will end. If it is interesting enough, I will keep you posted.

So, there you have it. The witches brew of academia, tribalism and democracy in a stinky concoction that only Jordanians can manage to put together. Hold your nose and drink up.

Standard BS

The geniuses of the higher education council yesterday announced that they are lowering minimum university entrance requirements for some fields at private and some public universities. Now, students are required to get 55% on the Tawjihi examination to be accepted in a number of fields. Previously, the minimum was 60%.

Now, I have been scratching my head about this all day. Why 55%? I mean, if they said 50% (the minimum passing grade), then that would make more sense. The logic would be that anybody who passes the Tawjihi has the right to continue his or her university studies. Despite the flaws in this logic, it does have a certain sense to it. But 55%? Why not 52%? Did they conduct some study that said that a 55% student was academically qualified for undergraduate studies, but 54% was just too low? Is this to maintain some pretence that they are interested in maintaining high quality in our higher education system? Like they are saying “sure, we have standards!”. What a joke.

Of course, the point is to help private universities maintain high enrollment levels. Most of these clowns are shareholders in private universities, and so they have a vested interest in packing them in. This way, classes are full, and the cash flows out of parents’ pockets into theirs. A perfect set up.

What about the students and their families? Sure, they are happier in the short run. But in the longer view, are they being served or abused. Are they being kept from going into the labor market or getting professional training that will allow them to make a decent living? Will the degrees they receive equip them to face the requirements for high quality white collar jobs that they are supposedly being trained for? As far as I can tell, getting students a university degree is a requirement made by parents and not by employers. From a statistical perspective, weak students in high school tend to be weak students in universities. Of course, universities (especially private ones) are loath to expel failing students because they make money off of them. In the final analysis, these students graduate and obtain diplomas, but are of little use in the workplace. Does anybody care?

Is it the job of the higher education system to respond to society’s preferences, or does it have a responsibility to reshape people’s attitudes to better reflect the country’s needs?

We keep hearing talk about giving our new generation the tools for dealing with the modern job market. Clearly, actions speak louder than words.

Human rights: theory and practice

Jordanian university curricula are often accused of being too theoretically oriented, with little applied demonstrations. Not true for Yarmouk University.

For example, the university runs a course in human rights. As part of the course, somebody thought (for some inexplicable reason) that it might be a good idea to hear some opposition views on what is going on in Jordan.

So, they invited Fakher Da’as, who is running the Dhabahtoona campaign for student rights. So, five minutes before the guy is supposed to give his presentation, the head of the political science department informs the course instructor that the university administration has banned the lecture. See, this is the practical side of the course.

And things had been going so well. The university had been basking in the glory of the king’s visit last week. In it, he had exhorted the students to get involved in politics and promised that nobody will persecute them for their activism. Radio host Mohammad Wakeel gushed at how the wise and foresighted leadership of the university president was the reason why the king chose Yarmouk University as a venue to put out his message. Wakeel was happy with the university president because the said president made sure that Wakeel’s son would be one of the select students who met the king during the visit.

Part of Wakeel’s radio show involves an exhaustive reading of newspaper headlines in the morning. For some strange reason, he forgot to read the headline on this story this morning, even though it was reported in Al Ghad. It must have been an unintentional oversight.

So there you have it. In a nutshell, we can see the disconnect between theory and practice, professional journalism and hack journalism, sloganeering and reality. A perfect representation of what Jordan is today.

Losing our faculties

Recently, the Zarqa Private University fired a group of 14 faculty members, including the deputy president to the IAF, Irhail Gharaibeh. The university says the move was made due to “restructuring”.

Actually, the restructuring started a couple of years ago, when a non-Islamist investor purchased control of the majority stake in the university, which had until then been controlled by the Islamists. This change in management meant change in the philosophy of the institution. Another reason why the university may have done this was to lower staff costs.

The main question, to me, is whether universities are similar to massage parlors, grocery stores or gas stations. Can institutions of higher learning be managed as any business? How can intellectual freedom, debate and research be fostered in a climate where faculty members can be dismissed at will? Gharaibeh asks these questions himself today. It goes without saying that ZPU was not exactly a hotbed of challenging debate and free thinking before the change in management.

But the question remains, and goes to the heart of what we perceive the function of a university to be. Do we want diploma mills?

Of course, public universities suffer from the opposite problem. The promotion and tenure system there allow for a lot of dead wood in their teaching staff, and it is impossible to fire even the most demonstrably incompetent and lazy faculty members. Universities have faculty members who have been in their service for over twenty years without obtaining tenure. Tenure decisions usually are made in five or six years in most universities in the west. Even when reaching the top academic rank of professor, many faculty members choose to sit back and do nothing. No supervision of graduate students, no grants and no research or publications. What can be done about them? Under current legislation, practically nothing.

So, we hang between two extremes, with private sector greed and abuse, and public sector mismanagement and complacency. Maybe the candidates to become university presidents might like to debate how to resolve this issue.

University presidents

The last few weeks have been busy on the university front. It started when a new fracas broke out at Yarmouk University, followed by a visit by the king to the University of Jordan, where he met with the presidents of the public universities in the country. The king told the presidents to prepare a five year plan for the upgrading of their institutions. He also emphasized the need to prevent student violence.

After having treated previous student violence through trivializing the issue, the presidents found that this violence is actually a serious matter. It seems, however, that this new found sincerity is too late.

The buzz is now that a wholesale change in the presidents of the universities is in the cards. Many would agree that change is needed at this stage. However, it should be noted that the current mess has its roots in a similar endeavor three years ago. At the time of prime minister Faisal Fayez, the minister of higher education decided to fire seven university presidents at once. Previously, changes in university administrations had been done on a case-by-case basis. Experience has shown that most of the presidents fired three years ago were much more capable than the ones who replaced them. Three years ago, no question would have ever been raised about the credibility of Jordanian university degrees. Now, such questions are in fact on the table.

Choosing a university president is not an easy task. In the west, the process takes months of deliberations, advertising for candidates, studying CV’s, listening to presentations, conducting interviews, discussing plans until the final decision is made. Note that this is for only one president.

In Jordan, the process is opaque. Certain names with links to certain politicians have an inside track. No CV’s will be examined, no visions presented, and probably no examination that will ascertain that the candidate knows English (which is a requirement to get accepted into a masters’ program, but not a requirement to be a university president).

So now, we are listening to rumors, which change hourly. Soon we will have the new names, and how they managed to get themselves chosen. If we are lucky, the process will produce a group of illustrious academicians with proven track records who can lead the universities towards distinction. Unfortunately, repeating the same experiment of three years ago will most probably yield the same results. I am not optimistic.

Scientific research

The press has been interested in the issue of scientific research in Jordan the last couple of days. Yesterday, under the provocative title “Universities cost the treasury billions of dinars a year due to weakness of scientific research”, Al Arab Al Yawm tried to deal with this issue. Citing “specialized studies”, the article claims that “the national economy suffers great losses due to the decline in the quality of university graduates”. So, the author equates the treasury with the national economy, scientific research with quality of graduates, “great” losses with “billions” and his article with journalism.

What about the “specialized studies”? Who published them? What methodology was used to reach the conclusions? In short, how reliable are they? There is no credible substantiation for the incredible claims made in the beginning of the article or its title.

The article goes on to gives us a predictable litany of reasons why scientific research is weak in Jordan, citing the vice president of Jordan University, Nabil Shawaqfeh, and the head of the friends of scientific research society, Anwar Battikhi. Shawaqfeh blamed poor graduate studies theses on the lack of motivated full time students and the lack of incentives for excellent students, as well as high work loads for faculty members. Battikhi suggested that there are not enough researchers per capita in the country in comparison with more developed countries. He also blamed poor funding for research in university budgets and by the private sector. In a refreshing counter argument, the former head of JUST and current head of the National Center for Diabetes, Kamel Ajlouni, blamed faculty members themselves, claiming that despite their high degrees, they are poor researchers.

Today, Al Ghad took a different angle, by emphasizing the economic potential that is wasted due to poor linkages between research and society needs, citing economic analyst Hussam ‘Ayesh. ‘Ayesh also linked poor scientific capacities to the brain drain from the country. On the other hand, pharmaceutical industry association general director, Hanan Sboul is cited pointing out that research investment by Jordanian pharmaceutical companies have increased substantially in recent years, leading to notable increases in exports for these companies.

A while back, I wrote about the financial conditions of Jordanian Universities. I raised the issue of the "additional fees for Jordanian universities", which are collected for the universities, but are not used for the benefit they are raised for. Today, the higher education council was to divide government “support” for the universities, with a total amount of 50 million dinars for nine universities (notice the lack of mention of additional university fees tax).

This is not to say that university funding is really linked to the supposed poor research in the universities. As far as I can tell, the indicators used to measure quality of research seem to rely on the number of articles published and where they are published. This is an easy yardstick, but it is self contradictory. Why? Because “relevant” scientific research is almost by definition geared towards local issues. International journals tend not to publish research, no matter how high the quality, that is not of interest to an international audience. Often, high quality papers are rejected because they are of “local interest”. So, researchers publishing in local journals for working on “relevant” local projects are viewed poorly, while researchers who work on “irrelevant” (to local issues) projects and publish in international journals are viewed favorably.

But a bigger issue is that nobody in a position to make decisions actually reads research results anyway. This is a well known problem, and the sad fact is that getting officials interested enough in genuinely innovative research projects and results is almost impossible. Reading is a bother, and finding a fundable research line will mean that it should be funded, meaning less money for officials to travel around the world looking for experts. The issue is a red herring. Instead of bothering to actually read research papers to determine if they are in fact worthy of consideration and implementation, it is easier to brand all local research as being poor and irrelevant. This makes it easier to hire foreign consultants, who are more credible just because they are foreign.

As for the friends of scientific research society, they are doing a disservice to scientific research, by conceding that research is poor (indicting themselves), and blaming this on the lack of funds. A real breakthrough will require decision makers to read and fairly consider the results of local researchers, and move from there. The pharmaceutical industries' experiment should be used as a case study.

Tell me lies, tell me sweet little lies

One eventually gets used to politicians and government officials being less than honest with their statements. However, I like to think that universities and their officials should hold and be held to higher standards.

A couple of weeks ago, a riot broke out at Yarmouk University. Following the riot, university officials claimed that the problems were the result of “reinforcements” brought in from outside the university, and that the original cause of the fight was personal problems between a few students. Other reports had cited disagreements over elections of student clubs.

Yesterday, the head of the Irbid police, ‘Ayed ‘Ajarmeh, basically called the officials of the university liars. He said that the police had known that trouble was brewing (over club elections), and that it had warned the university officials, who did nothing. He also said that police had taken precautions by preventing non-students from entry to the campus. Moreover, while the university had claimed to have given the police names of the outside troublemakers for prosecution, the university had in fact only given the police only two names of students who were previously expelled for academic reasons. Two names.

To me, university officials who lie are even more embarrassing than ones who are clueless as to what’s going on in their campus. In this case, they are one in the same. I wonder if there is anybody in charge who is as disgusted as I am.

Riots at Yarmouk University

A large fight broke out yesterday at Yarmouk University between Irbidi and Ajlouni students. This resulted in damage to windows, cars and buildings on the campus, as well as the injury of four people, including a security guard.

The reason cited for the fight was student elections. It is notable that Yarmouk University is one of the few universities where student council elections are for the entire body. Other universities appoint half of the members.

Anyway, this is not the first time university students get into a brawl. There have been incidents at the University of Jordan and at various private universities. There seems to be a lack of respect for the finer points of debate and argument, and an alarming reversion to tribal and regional loyalties. This is occurring in the very places where the future of the country is being cast.

Universities are not simply places where knowledge is transferred. They are centers for forging attitudes and ethics. It is true that many of students’ attitudes are set before they enroll in universities. This raises a challenge but does not provide an excuse. An aggressive effort needs to be made to instill the desired attitudes into our students. Ethics of work, respect, tolerance, reasoning, meritocracy and curiosity should replace those of expedience and tribal and regional bonding. Only when this begins to happen will we be on the right path.

Student council

Normally, the election of a student council at any university any where in the world doesn't elicit much attention. In Jordan, the issue is different, as it is used as a yardstick to measure present and future trends of the Jordanian state.

This week, the students at the University of Jordan will elect half of their student council. The funny part is that the university administration will choose the other half. This strange arrangement was put in place five years ago, ostensibly to limit the influence of Islamists in the council. This year, the Islamists are feeling especially feisty, and have decided to boycott the elections to protest the rule that only allows the election of half the council seats. As usual, the pan Arabists and leftists are taking their cues from the Islamists, and are boycotting as well.

Many observers, such as Ali Mahafza, have drawn a link between student violence and the lack of an avenue for political expression. Moreover, Mahafza has suggested that the state has encouraged the growth of the Islamic movement as well as narrow tribal loyalties as a way to curtail the growth of Pan Arabist and leftist movements. Khadder Kenaan has a detailed narrative which conforms to this story, and admonishes leftist students to beware of conforming too closely to the Islamist agenda.

Batir Wardam suggests that the growth of tribalism on campuses is a result of a conscious effort to stem the growth of the Islamic movement. Given the marginal importance of the leftists and Pan Arabists, there is really little variety that students can choose from. It is clear that a decision to depoliticize the student body has been made. It seems that officials are still gun shy of students 20 years after the Yarmouk University riots, which led to the death of four students. The problem of parties from outside the university manipulating the student movement is also a consideration. In the final analysis, given the narrow choices available, no wonder there is so much apathy towards politics in the student body.

To me, the end result is a shame. The best context in which to teach young people the workings of democracy is on campus. My feeling is that the much maligned tribalism and apathy in the student body reflects a rejection of the Islamist agenda. Despite the Islamist bogeyman that is commonly overemphasized, parliamentary elections consistently show that less than 20% of people vote for Islamists. The deeper story is that the 80%+ of the people who vote based on tribal and other bases are consciously choosing not to vote for Islamists. It is interesting to note that at Yarmouk University, where all the student council members are elected, the Islamists consistently do poorly. Thus, the argument that the appointment of half the student council members protects against Islamists taking over the council doesn't stand up. If anything, it allows them to portray themselves as victims. This is just another example of results being different than the portrayed objective. A trend?

The problem is the lack of any viable political party that can actually articulate a progressive inclusive nationalistic agenda. I have argued before that the lack of such a party leaves us exposed and vulnerable to outside interference.

The latest events related to the Hamas terror cell have shown how politically weak we really are. The MB/IAF took over the political discourse, with no political party to argue for the sanctity of Jordan's sovereignty and security. A strong non government affiliated centrist party would have made us look less like a dictatorship and more like a mature democracy protecting its interests. It would have organized various events to reject interference in our affairs and the endangerment of our security and national unity. Alas, all of that was missing.

Lina narrated an interesting story about student reaction to the terror events of November 9. Despite attempts to manipulate students' feelings at the time, these students showed a mature and reasoned sense of center.

Let them elect their entire council.

The water's coming. I'm going to water my garden.

Jordanian Yemeni University

I hate the way that our press announces momentous news in one sentence briefs. Al Rai has an example here. It says that Jordan will establish a Jordanian Yemeni university in Aden, to "enhance cooperation in the field of higher education between the two sister states". The item later says that the minister of higher education and the governor of Aden and the president of Aden University visited the location of the university.

This is a very interesting piece of news. I assume that the public sector in Jordan is involved, since the minister of higher education, Khaled Toukan, made the announcement. The question that arises is what are we committing to here? Money or expertise or both? Or is this just another rash announcement in the heat of sisterly affection that will never see the light of day? My guess is the later, after reading lots of these things in the past.

As we say in Jordan, Il haki ma a'laeih jumruk (there are no customs duties on talk).

University debts

The Prime Minister yesterday met with the presidents of Jordan's public universities to speak about the level of debt these universities suffer. This has reached the unprecedented level of 117 million JD's. What I hate about such press reports is how useless they are. If you want to know what is really going on, you have to do your own research. Fortunately for you, Khalaf has done this for you.

The press report simply states that there was a meeting, and the PM told the presidents that something needs to be done (like they don't know). There is also a thinly veiled threat that the university independence from more government interference is at stake.

There are eight public universities in Jordan, with about 130,000 students studying for their bachelors degrees, 8,700 studying for their masters and 1,400 studying for their doctorate, according to the web site of the ministry of higher education. Public higher education in Jordan is among the finest in the region, as is attested by the success of the graduates of these institutions almost everywhere they go.

The issue of the debts run up by universities is not new. The rapid expansion in university establishment since the 1990's led to high costs in infrastructure development and the purchasing of equipment and the hiring of staff. Initially, a tax called the additional fees for Jordanian Universities was enacted in order to fund the first universities established (the University of Jordan and Yarmouk University). The tax is paid on almost any type of government and municipal procedure that can be imagined. Despite the high transparency of the ministry of finance on their web site, there is no, sign of the amount of the university fee collected in the 2005 budget. All of the fees collected are listed as a single budget item, with expected revenues of 310 million JD. I suspect a large proportion of these are university fees, since people pay them everywhere they go. On the other hand, the government donated 44 million JD as a subsidy for the universities and municipalities in 2002. I can't find more up to date information on the site but I believe that the number has now risen to about 50 million JD. In any case, it seems that the university fees are not being fully sent to the universities. Moreover, successive governments have established new universities with no long term vision as to how to cover shortfalls caused by spreading the cake too thin. So the universities are now holding the bag.

In order to cover shortfalls in their budgets, the universities started to raise tuition fees a couple of years ago. An uproar ensued, and the government took a decision outside its mandate to freeze raising of tuitions. The universities had to start accepting lower quality students in so-called parallel programs, which are the same as regular programs, but with higher fees for students who are not accepted in the normal procedure, but have money to pay. This helped alleviate the problem in some universities. However, the structural problem remains. The government doesn't want to pay a somewhat modest proportion of what they are collecting in the name of additional university fees to cover the cost of university well being. They also don't want the unpopular decision of raising tuitions so that the students will cover more of the cost.

In the final analysis, there are limited numbers of choices. The easiest is to let the quality of university education deteriorate, with inadequate libraries, laboratories, equipment and building maintenance. The second is for the government to pay up what they are collecting for this purpose in the first place. The third is to increase tuitions. A forth alternative, which many people suspect is the reason for all this, is to privatize the public universities. The general feeling is that it is in the interest of the owners of the private universities to let the public universities decay, since they represent competition. I am not in a position to know the reason why all this is being done, but I think it is not as sinister as the conspiracy theory has it. It is just another example of the government trying to achieve good results without spending money. In Arabic we say (Il bied ma bingala bi drat). You can't fry eggs with farts.

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Update

Al Ghad has a report on the subject. It is no surprise that none of the university presidents interviewed mentioned the university fee tax, and where the money is going. Their prime concern is keeping their jobs.