Reform of higher education Policy and integrity perspectives

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Reform of higher educationPolicy and integrity
perspectives

• Prof. Hossam Badrawi MD, MP
• Chair Education Committee NDP

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Introduction

• Egypt is the largest, country in North Africa and
  the Middle East. Its education system is also the
  oldest of all.
• The higher education system carries almost 2.3
  million students, distributed in only 18 state
  and 16 private universities

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Introduction

• The system is an example of mass education,
• this student bulk represents only 29 of young
  people at the age of 18 to 23, a percentage that
  does not represent the neither the aspiration of
  the society nor the set standards of
  enrollement.

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Introduction

• We realize that HE outputs in any nation
  are
• the engines of change,
• the power of fostering reforms,
• the leaders of the future and
• the eligible platform of creativity.
• That is why we believe that Education in Egypt
  requires nothing less than a major revolution.

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Five main policies

• We see five main policies urgently needed for a
  serious reform of higher education in Egypt .

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Five main policies

• Redesigning the responsibility of the State to
  H.E. system and institutes.
• A H.E. Expansion to accommodate new enrollments
  according to a set vision .
• Powerful Shake-up to Improve Quality.
• A Versatile, flexible system that is compatible
  with the needs of development, connected and
  exposed to the international H.E. moves of
  reforms .
• Clear commitments to institutional integrity

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1- Redesigning the responsibility of the State to
H.E. system and institutes

• The responsibility of the state towards higher
  education should continue, but in a different
  format.
• Higher Education should be liberated from the
  domination of both government and the unregulated
  profit motive.

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1- Redesigning the responsibility of the State to
H.E. system and institutes

• The government's responsibility for higher
  education does not mean that all institutions of
  HE should be government owned and managed.

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1- Redesigning the responsibility of the State to
H.E. system and institutes

• However, such institutions should be governed by
  independent boards with quadripartite
  representations of the people, the state, the,
  the civil society, the academia and the private
  sector.

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1- Redesigning the responsibility of the State to
H.E. system and institutes

• This new constituency, replacing the government
  only, is needed to be developed so as
  accountability of this institutions to the
  society becomes a reality.

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1- Redesigning the responsibility of the State to
H.E. system and institutes

• We are, encouraging privet sector involvement in
  higher education, as long as, the two pillars
  are developed and implemented
• -quality assurance accreditation,
• -the development of student finance
  systems.

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1- Redesigning the responsibility of the State to
H.E. system and institutes

• We should prevent copying the stat Osco of the
  existing system to the new developments weather
  state owned or privately financed.

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1- Redesigning the responsibility of the State to
H.E. system and institutes

• A third option of creating non governmental, non
  profit Universities should be encouraged,
• however we believe that this will be a natural
  development with improving the economy of the
  country and the growth of the institutional
  wealth.

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1- Redesigning the responsibility of the State to
H.E. system and institutes

• As part of its responsibility for higher
  education, the state should not anymore deal with
  universities as public sector entities or with
  university staff as public employees, the state
  should however
• Massively increase government and social funding
  of public higher education.
• Increase the efficiency of the use of resources
  (good governance)
• Maximize the knowledge and societal return
• Reform the choice of administration

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1- Redesigning the responsibility of the State to
H.E. system and institutes

• To accomplish these tasks, institutions of higher
  education should have increased autonomy while
  seeking to systematically strengthen their ties
  with regional and international institutions and
  networks. However they should be
• Financially accountable.
• Subjected to strict accreditation systems and
  rigorously monitored to ensure quality.
• Abiding to codes of institutional integrity.

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2- Higher Education Expansion

• Only 29 of young Egyptians, with reasonable
  gender equality at the age 18 22 are enrolled
  in the Egyptian higher education system.
• To close the wide gap in enrollment in Higher
  Education, building human capabilities in Egypt
  require expansion of this level of education.

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2- Higher Education Expansion

• However, expansion needs to be carefully
  designed, especially in the case of existing
  institutions, where expansion in the past has led
  to a deterioration of quality, drop in management
  efficiency, and appearance of corruption.

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2- Higher Education Expansion

• Can the state alone create the needed expansion
  with quality education, the answer is definitely
  No, and then who can?

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2- Higher Education Expansion

• The challenge needs
• Creative Public Private Initiatives (out of the
  box thinking)
• Private non for profit initiatives
• Private sector investments transparently
  regulated.

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2- Higher Education Expansion

• However, no new institutions, public or private,
  should be created unless they can offer higher
  standard of quality.
• I believe public private initiatives can be the
  pear head in that development for the time being.
  
• The state should create that environment, and
  help that development.

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3- A Powerful Shake-up to Improve Quality

• A powerful shake-up to improve quality is
  highly needed in the existing institutions of
  higher education, standard has to be set up,
  indicators has to be clarified, and quality
  assurance and accreditation should be
  implemented.

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3- A Powerful Shake-up to Improve Quality

• Accreditation, both academic and institutional,
  can only serve its purpose if the accrediting
  body, is totally independent from government
  control, particularly for the government owned
  universities.

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3- A Powerful Shake-up to Improve Quality

• Decentralization, and budgeting of those
  university should be directly related to
• --------------the university ratings,
• --------------world class research activities and
  ,
• --------------number of students.

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3- A Powerful Shake-up to Improve Quality

• We believe applying quality assurance measures
  using the European International standards of
  HE, should be a policy that should not be
  compromised under any circumstances, and will not
  only lead to a better education but can be the
  gate for restoring integrity of it's institutions.

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3- A Powerful Shake-up to Improve Quality

• Teaching and research capacities should be
  enhanced, and facilities should be improved to
  accommodate the enrollment.
• Effective programs should be implemented to
  improve the capabilities of faculty and staff
  through training, research, and study programs in
  Egypt and abroad, especially in preparation for
  assuming faculty positions.

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3- A Powerful Shake-up to Improve Quality

• Competition must be established as a essential
  ongoing condition in the filling of faculty
  posts.
• Tenure should be confined to professors with
  exceptional performance.
• University Presidents and higher administration
  should be chosen via transparent methods with
  participation of stake holders, and they should
  be held accountable against tasks and objectives.

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3- A Powerful Shake-up to Improve Quality

• There is also a need for reform of the rules
  governing enrollment.

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Quality integrity are interrelated

• .
• We can argue that part of the challenge to
  enforce codes of institutional integrity in an
  old longstanding system, that suffers from
  malpractices, frauds, plagiarism, fabrication and
  sometimes violation of student rights, could be
  dealt with via the rout of quality assurance and
  the subjection to accreditation and external
  independent auditing.

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3- A Powerful Shake-up to Improve Quality

• Without institutional integrity, no true
  excellence could be expected or achieved, neither
  in teaching nor in research.
• Without integrity and having standards to tackle
  conflicts of interest within the institution
  Quality is jeopardized and cost effectiveness of
  managing university budgets could be easily
  violated.

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4-University Needs of Development

• A-Flexibility and Versatility of the system
• B-Readability of the System
• C-Institutional Autonomy
• D- Academic Freedom

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4- University Needs of Development

• A- Flexibility and Versatility of the system
• A versatile flexible system of higher education
  that is compatible with the needs of development
  should be established.
• To achieve versatility, basic programs should not
  be replicas of old ones (a condition for
  developing new programs in the stat Osco).

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4- University Needs of Development

• A-Flexibility and Versatility of the system
• Flexibility on the individual level means the
  freedom to leave and to return to various
  institutions of higher education.
• Flexibility on the institutional level means that
  the structure of institutions and the content of
  their programs are continually revised by
  governance boards to guarantee a quick response
  to local and international developments.

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4- University Needs of Development.

• A- Flexibility and Versatility of the system
• Much of the originality and flexibility in the
  system will be achieved through the use of credit
  hours system , this will allow for validation of
  these acquired credits for those who choose
  initial or continued education in different
  universities and wish to be able to acquire
  degrees in due time throughout life.

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4- University Needs of Development

• A-Flexibility and Versatility of the system
• Students should be able to enter the academic
  world at any time in their professional life and
  from diverse backgrounds.
• Undergraduates should have access to a diversity
  of programs, including opportunities for
  multidisciplinary studies, development of a
  proficiency in languages and the ability to use
  new information technologies.

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4- University Needs of Development

• B-Readability of the System
• The international recognition and attractive
  potential of our systems should be directly
  related to their external and internal
  readabilities.
• A 3 cycle degree system should be recognized for
  international comparison and equivalence,
  following the bologna process of reforming HE in
  Europe.

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4- University Needs of Development

• B-Readability of the System
• In all graduate degrees, appropriate emphasis
  would be placed on research and autonomous work.

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4- University Needs of Development

• B-Readability of the System
• New scientific and technological research
  projects should be decided on the basis of input
  from expert reviewers, with each project and
  program evaluated both for technical merit and
  its potential benefits to society.
• All existing research programs and centers of
  excellence can similarly benefit from periodic
  expert review and evaluation.
• Techniques for such procedures should include, as
  appropriate, peer-review teams, relevance-review
  panels, or benchmarking studies.

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4- University Needs of Development

• Teaching and research in universities must be
  inseparable, rejecting intolerance and always
  open to dialogue

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4- University Needs of Development

• C- Institutional Autonomy
• The university is an autonomous institution at
  the heart of societies it produces, examines,
  appraises and hands down culture by research and
  teaching.
• To meet the needs of the world around it, its
  research and teaching must be morally and
  intellectually independent of all political
  authority and economic power.

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4- Needs of Development

• D-Institutional Autonomy
• A university is an ideal meeting-ground for
  teachers capable of imparting their knowledge and
  well equipped to develop it by research and
  innovation and students entitled, able and
  willing to enrich their minds with that
  knowledge.
• University's constant care should be attaining
  universal knowledge.

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4- University Needs of Development

• To fulfill university's vocation it should
  cross geographical and political frontiers, and
  affirms the vital need for different cultures to
  know and influence each other.

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4- Needs of Development

• E- Academic Freedom
• To attain this goal some some principles has to
  be respected
• Each university must ensure that its students'
  freedoms are safeguarded, and that they enjoy
  conditions in which they can acquire the culture
  and training which is their purpose to possess.

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4- Needs of Development.

• E- Academic Freedom
• Academic freedom is the intellectual and creative
  foundation of the University
• This concept should be clearly stated and applies
  to all members of the faculty

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4- Needs of Development

• E- Academic Freedom
• The faculty and administration jointly should
  accept the responsibility for maintaining an
  atmosphere in which scholars may freely teach,
  conduct research, publish, and engage in other
  scholarly activities.
• This responsibility includes maintaining the
  freedom for the examination of controversial
  issues throughout the University, including
  classroom discussion when such issues are
  relevant to the subject matter of the course

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4- University Needs of Development

• E- Academic Freedom
• University should not attempt to control the
  personal opinion, nor the public expression of
  that opinion, of any member of the faculty or
  staff of the institution.
• But in doing so, employees have an obligation to
  avoid any action which purports to commit the
  institution to a position on any issue without
  appropriate approval.
• Individual academic freedom for study, inquiry,
  research, and debate, conditioned and balanced by
  a commitment to pursue its stated mission.

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4- University Needs of Development

• E-Higher Education Academic Freedom
• University should not attempt to control the
  personal opinion, nor the public expression of
  that opinion, of any member of the faculty or
  staff of the institution.
• But in doing so, employees have an obligation to
  avoid any action which purports to commit the
  institution to a position on any issue without
  appropriate approval.

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4- University Needs of Development

• E-Higher Education Academic Freedom
• Individual academic freedom for study, inquiry,
  research, and debate, conditioned and balanced by
  a commitment to pursue its stated mission.
• Faculty are expected to pursue truth and
  knowledge and are conferred the right to
  research, teach, and discuss any topic without
  being subject to University or System discipline
  or censorship.

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4- University Needs of Development

• E-Higher Education Academic Freedom
• Faculty are expected to prize accuracy, exercise
  appropriate self control, show respect for the
  opinions of others, and protect the academic
  freedom of students and their rights of access to
  the University.

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5-commitments to institutional integrity

• Every Higher institution should adhere to the
  highest ethical standards
• in its representation to its constituencies and
  the public
• in its teaching, scholarship, and service
• in its treatment of its students, faculty, and
  staff
• in its relationships with regulatory and
  accrediting agencies.

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5-commitments to institutional integrity

• The institution, including governing board
  members, administrators, faculty, and staff,
  should subscribe to, exemplify, and advocate high
  ethical standards in the management and
  operations and in all of its dealings with
  students, the public, organizations, and external
  agencies.
• Every institution should regularly evaluate and
  revise as necessary its policies, procedures, and
  publications to ensure continuing integrity
  throughout the institution.

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5-commitments to institutional integrity

• Every institution should represent itself
  accurately and consistently to its
  constituencies, the public and prospective
  students through its publications, and official
  statements

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5-commitments to institutional integrity

• Every Institutional policy should define and
  prohibit conflict of interest on the part of
  governing board members, administrators, faculty,
  and staff.

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5-commitments to institutional integrity

• Every institution should demonstrate, through
  its policies and practices, its commitment to the
  free pursuit and dissemination of knowledge
  consistent with the institution's mission and
  goals.

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5-commitments to institutional integrity

• Policy on Institutional Integrity
• By academic tradition and by philosophical
  principle, an institution of higher learning is
  committed to the pursuit of truth and to its
  communication to others.
• To carry out this essential commitment calls for
  institutional integrity in the way a college or
  university manages its affairs which can be seen
  in the way it specifies its goals, selects and
  retains its faculty, admits students, establishes
  curricula, determines programs of research, and
  fixes its fields of service.

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5-commitments to institutional integrity

• Policy on Institutional Integrity
• The maintenance and exercise of such
  institutional integrity postulates and requires
  appropriate autonomy and freedom as mentioned
  before.
• This is the freedom to examine data, to question
  assumptions, to be guided by evidence, to teach
  what one knows to be a learner and a scholar.
• This is a freedom from unwarranted harassment
  which hinders or prevents a college or university
  from getting on with its essential work.

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5-commitments to institutional integrity

• A college or university must be managed well
  and remain solvent, but it is not a business or
  an industry.
• It must be concerned with the needs of its
  community and it's country
• An institution of higher learning is not a
  political party or a social service. It must be
  morally responsible, but, even when religious -
  related, like Al Azhar University in Egypt, it is
  not a religion or a mosque.

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5-commitments to institutional integrity

• Relating to this general concern corresponding to
  intellectual and academic freedom are correlative
  responsibilities.
• On the part of boards and administrators, there
  is the obligation to protect faculty and students
  from inappropriate pressures or destructive
  harassments.

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5-commitments to institutional integrity

• On the part of the faculty, there is the
  obligation to distinguish personal conviction
  from proven conclusions and to present relevant
  data fairly to students because this same freedom
  asserts their right to know the facts.

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5-commitments to institutional integrity

• On the part of students, there is the obligation
  to sift and to question, to be actively involved
  in the life of the institution, but involved as
  learners at appropriate levels.

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5-commitments to institutional integrity

• Intellectual freedom does not rule out
  commitment, rather it makes it possible and
  personal.
• Freedom does not require neutrality on the part
  of the individual or the educational institution,
  certainly not toward the task of inquiry and
  learning, nor toward the value systems which may
  guide them as persons or as schools.

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5-commitments to institutional integrity

• Hence, institutions may hold to a particular,
  social, or religious philosophy, as may
  individual faculty members or students.
• But to be true to what they profess academically,
  individuals and institutions must remain
  intellectually free and allow others the same
  freedom to pursue truth and to distinguish the
  pursuit of it from a commitment to it.

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5-commitments to institutional integrity

• The challenge and the great difficulty in
  assuming and honoring those policies is the fact
  that we cannot separate the higher education
  institution from the surrounding environment in
  the country.
• It is not enough to have a new legislation or
  develop a regulatory body, as we have to consider
  change of culture in the society.

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5-commitments to institutional integrity

• reform cannot be achieved piecemeal
• A holistic vision should exist,
• A comprehensive reform including human rights
  issue should be respected,
• Freedom and democracy should prevail,
• political support and social reform, together
  with major economic reform should go hand in hand.

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University Decline

• History of universities which reveals that
  slow, but inevitable, institutional decline is
  brought about by the followings
• Unconditional submission to the ideological
  interest of the state, of political parties, of
  organized minorities or of economic
  organizations.

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University Decline

• 2-Excessive preoccupation with current local
  issues, and faculty self interest

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University Decline

• 3-Acceptance of the stats quo, with resistance to
  develop and resistance to change

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University Decline

• 4-Disregard of the universal mission of the
  University as an Institution devoted to teaching
  and research and steadily search for excellence
  in these two areas

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University Decline

• 5-Use of the two pillars of universal academic
  values, that of academic freedom and of
  university autonomy, not for democratic
  governance and to protect students and teachers
  in their pursuit of truth and new knowledge, but
  as self serving.

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Conclusion

• It was Albert Einstein who once said that
  The significant problems we face cannot be
  solved at the same level of thinking we were at,
  when we created them.

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Higher education reform necessity

• HE institutes are expected to be the change agent
  in developing societies, leading them to the
  future.
• We should not allow them to decline and the
  priority of their reform becomes more than a
  necessity to the whole society.

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Higher education reform necessity

• However, this cannot be achieved with the same
  thinking we were at when we created their current
  problems.