Promoting citizenship education and academic freedom

Promoting citizenship education and academic freedom

But Hilmi Salem, director-general of applied sciences and engineering research centres at the Palestine Technical University, said the strategy lacked an implementation plan and monitoring system.

It also failed to identify the role that higher education institutions must play in building social cohesion after political changes, he said. Universities should prepare students to become active, informed and responsible citizens.

"This could be done by incorporating local and global citizenship education courses into the curriculum, organising training programmes and holding workshops and conferences about the topic," Salem said.

He recommended that Arab universities should make use of online education resources such as Teaching Citizenship in Higher Education. He said a directory for experts and researchers, a guide to specialised international institutions and a database for best practices should be established.

This view was supported by Egyptian higher education expert Manar Sabry, of the State University of New York in Buffalo, United States. "The revolutions throughout the region imply a need to improve the relevance of university education to the job market," she said.

This would require strong governance, greater accountability, quality assurance and the ability to respond to changes in job markets nationally and internationally.

"Also, the Arab revolutions have drawn attention to the poor state of academic freedom and there is evidence from both Egypt and Tunisia, where revolutions are considered successful, that more academic freedom is a priority for reform," she said.

Tension over this issue has been highlighted by the case of Manouba University in Tunisia, where protests have taken place to allow females wearing the niqab (face cover) into lecture halls, whereas previously the old regime had banned the less controversial hijab (head cover) on campuses.