NATHIRA AL HMAIMAT PORTFOLIO
الملف المهني - نذيرة الحميمات
With the huge increment of the students' number engaging in higher education, there was a global demand to transform the higher education. This demand came from the pressure of the market needs, the need for quality assurance, the need for technology, and the students' diversity.
Recently, there is a research highlighted the number of jobs that will disappear by the year 2030 due to automation and robotics, which will substitute 40% of the current jobs.
For instance, there were many researchers studied the South Africa higher education transformation, and they found that ‘government, parastatals, universities, civil society organizations, business and greater society must work cooperatively and collaboratively to respond to the need for improved mid to high level skills development opportunities, job creation and improvement of poor educational achievement which continue to confront South Africa’ as cited in the second national higher education summit, 2015.
I do believe that the higher education policies and culture have to change by following the continuously developing technology and to include the technology to be part of higher education, for example, the e-learning strategies. Furthermore, the curriculum needs a transformation to advance the lifelong learning in higher education.
With the fast advancement of the higher education in the Arab world, and the efforts to accommodate the large youth sector, the pace with the shifting demand for human capital was not considered. Furthermore, the governments missed considering checking the students' competencies and their readiness to the workplace and missed to study the need of the market and the available opportunities for the graduate to be employed. Which explains the high percentage of unemployment and the shortage of skilled staff sought by the employers.
After the 2002 United Nations Development Program's Arab Human Development Report declaration for a need to change the Arab education to enhance human capabilities, creating strong synergy between education and socio-economic system and formulating a programme for education reform; there was a huge advancement in which a varied program existed ranging from graduate, undergraduate, technical, professional degrees issued by polytechnic institutes, community colleges and online programs, and it was reported that the number of educational institutions was doubled. However; there were wide differences between the regional countries in terms of demographic pressures and availability of resources. Nonpublic sectors universities exceed 80% of all universities in Bahrain, Lebanon, Palestine, Qatar and the UAE. In addition to the establishment of free trade educational centers such as the Knowledge Village in Dubai.
Despite all the efforts taken to improve the higher education in Arab countries, still, there is a gap in the quality to follow the international standards and the quantity to accommodate a large number of the youth. for that, a higher education system reform is needed in Arab countries.
To overcome the factors that influence the quality of higher education in Arab countries, all the building blocks need to be addressed which include the inputs into the educational process, policy, and governance, local community, labor market and other stakeholders.
Finally, there are three key factors which provide a challenge for the Arab higher education system, these challenges include the quality, governance and educational outcomes and development. The steered committee recommended the following to improve the higher education in the Arab world:
1. Improve Quality: By ensuring tough regulations and quality assurance structures are in place and functioning effectively to guarantee a certain quality of teaching and learning in all institutions
2. Strict monitoring of the private and for-profit institutions in the region to evaluate and ensure the consistent performance and the accepted standards of delivering the required education.
3. Establishing higher education councils
4. Eliminate top-down decision making on education policy and to open up university governance structure.
5. Adopting a culture of evaluation and accountability at every level (Administrator, Faculty, and students).
6. To invest in teachers.
7. Provide higher education alternatives
8. Addressing the preparedness of secondary school graduates and applicants to universities.
9. Develop sustaining funding strategies.
10. Partnerships with the private sector.
Source: The Saban Center for Middle East Policy at Brookings higher Education Reform in the Arab World. (2011). Higher Education Reform in the Arab World. [Accessed 13 February 2018].
Community service is considered as an integral and core part of higher education globally. It is defined as a structured learning experience that links community service with clear learning goals. Community service has many dimensions in which, it can fall under professional, institutional, scholarly public service and pedagogy of engagement.
In higher education, there are many opportunities to engage in community service through being engaged in collaborative research projects or being an expert who contributes to community projects, or being an active member on community-based committees....etc.
One of the most important dimensions of community service is service learning or pedagogy of engagement. This is a course-based educational experience wherein the students participate in pre-planned activities to meet the needs of the community, which will reflect positively on the image of the disciplines and will improve the sense of civic responsibilities. For instance, in my current workplace, both the faculty and the students participate voluntarily in a community service aiming to raise the public awareness about health-related issues.
From my previous experience, to plan such activities, an analysis of the community needs has to be completed initially, and before deciding on the specific objectives of the programs. Next, specific objectives will be formulated to meet the needs of the community. A committee will be assigned to plan the specific procedure of how to implement the objectives including the budgets and the number of staff and students needed. Then to share the plan with the concerned staff and students. Indeed, a specific training for both the staff and the students will be accomplished before implementing the program on the public. Furthermore, it will be part of wisdom to plan for evaluation process by the end of the program.
In higher education, there is a debate about how to encourage both faculty and students to engage in community services, specifically when the time is limited. For that, some of the higher education institutions started to create policies to regulate the service learning. For instance, the students are required to complete certain volunteer hours to be able to graduate and complete the requirement of their degree. One of the solutions published in research is to establish a service office in which it will increase the awareness about the important role and provide opportunities for both staff and students to be engaged in volunteer networks.
Another debate exists about why faculty should serve the community when they are helping in research? Some of whom are with community service are highlighting the role of it in increasing the critical thinking of the students and fostering the civic responsibilities for both faculty and students, which I totally agree with.
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TRANSFORMATION IN HIGHER EDUCATION
REFLECTION ACTIVITES
CLASSROOM MANAGEMENT
Classroom management is considered a competency for teachers, in which it consists of a variety of skills aiming to engage the students, and encourage them to focus and improve their academic achievements. How to execute these skills is very important to successfully eliminate the behaviors that may be affecting learning processes, and to successfully increasing the behaviors that facilitate learning processes. However, the traditional understanding of classroom management was toward keeping students seated, following instructions and being attentive.
Nowadays, classroom management goes beyond the rules, to include all the possible skills the teacher use to facilitate students' learning. For example a positive attitude, relaxed facial expressions, encouraging words, the respectful and fair treatment of students as part of the teacher behaviors. The classroom environment is another example in which the teacher welcoming the students, the classroom well-structured and filled with learning materials to support learning. The third example is the expectations, wherein the teacher expects what the students’ quality of work they have to produce, the teachers’ expectation of the ways students to behave toward other students, the classroom grand rules that teachers make with students. Another example is the materials; the textbooks, and other audiovisual learning resources, the teachers use.
In contrast, the poor the classroom management, the greater the poor class engagement which contributes to the poor academic performance.
In higher education the classroom management is more complex because the classrooms are multidimensional, events are unpredictable, and things happened very quickly. so it is a wise to set the grand rules of the classroom, be in charge and be visible and available for the students.
Grand rules have to be very clear and comprehensive, consistent with educational goals and follow the school rules. To enhance the students' cooperation, the teacher has to develop a positive learner- teacher relationship, share classroom responsibilities, and reward positive behaviors. Furthermore, the communication skills can help the teacher in controlling the classroom.
COMMUNITY SERVICE IN HIGHER EDUCATION
Higher Education Reform in Arab World