When a student fails to get satisfactory scores in the required tests and assignments for a course in an academic program several times, he/she will be dismissed from the program. What if the academic program fails to teach students the knowledge and skills required by international standards, continuously for several years? Who should be blamed? The academic program, the university, or the way the higher education system is governed?

The Regional Bureau for Arab States, UNDP, has studied the quality of computer science education in 12 public and 4 private universities in 16 Arab States. In this study, they used five main criteria and eleven detailed criteria for the evaluation. These five main criteria were: academic standards; teaching and learning; students’ progression; learning resources; and quality assurance and enhancement. The study, published as part of the “Arab Human Development Report 2003: Building a Knowledge Society”, concluded that “the overall quality indicator is below the pass level for eight universities and close to the good level for three”. . In addition, it is clear that there is an absence of a role for the higher education system in social and economic development regardless to the amount of resources put into the field by the respective Arab governments. These deficiencies lead to the conclusion that is the higher education system itself that must be reformed, in its vision and governance.
Several Arab states have already started re-structuring their higher education systems. For example, in 2002 the Egyptian Government decided to establish the Supreme Council of Universities (SCU) and Jordan developed a “Strategy for Developing Higher Education”. At the top of the planning agenda is linking higher education to the marketplace. Such a step is very important but it can not succeed without a restructuring of the higher education governance system. The link between educational quality and good governance was stated by the international community, lead by UNESCO, when they adopted the “World Declaration on higher education for the Twenty-First Century: Vision and Action” in 1998. In another study conducted by the World Bank and UNESCO in 2000, they listed “set principles of good governance” as one of the practical steps to help improve the precarious situation of higher education in developing countries.

Strong centralization of the higher education system is a common feature in the Arab World. The Central Government, represented by the Ministry of Higher Education or similar, plans the strategy and policy, legislates admission and graduation regulations, and appoints executives and faculty members at different levels. Such governing systems are a reflection of the social culture and political system. As a result, concepts of accreditation and assessment based on academic achievements and performance rarely exist and/or are not practiced. The obstacle here is that reviewing a governmental entity’s performance in a centralized governance-system is not practical. Therefore, even though the quality of higher education has been deteriorating since the early 1990s in many Arab States, no actions have been taken to reverse this trend or solve obvious problems. As a result, the Arab World is lagging regions such as Latin American and Southeast Asia at the present time despite outperforming those regions in the 1970s-80s.

Good governance for the higher education systems can start with the separation of the funding source (mainly the government) and an independent and professional agency/council to review and assess the academic performance in the higher education institutions. Such assessments must be divided into at least two parts. The first regards the assessment of institutional achievement based on the institution’s mission and objectives and to ensure that ample resources have been set aside to achieve these goals and objectives. The second is to assess the professional skills and knowledge of graduates from the academic programs, especially in engineering, medicine and the natural sciences, relative to international academic standards. In countries like the United States, a good amount of effort and resources are devoted to a cycle of academic enhancement. Many developed countries have adopted some form of “continues academic enhancement” through the adaptation of a set of assessment policies and goals.

In the long-term, the mission of higher education institutions must change from graduating a large number of students to graduating students with a higher quality of education, knowledge, and skills. This reform can be achieved if the Arab governments accept at least a partial de-centralization of their higher education institutions, develop strategies and policies to check on their institutions’ academic performance, appoint/allow independent agencies to review the effectiveness and performance of the institutions and their programs, and link the government’s financial support with the ability of the institution/program to achieve its objectives.