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University Governance and Quality Assurance Program Contact us Adriana Jaramillo, Senior Education Specialist (ajaramillo@worldbank.org)
Laila Beghi, Consultant lbeghi@worldbank.org
Our Publications
Visit our website
• Universities Through the Looking Glass: Benchmarking University Governance to Enable Higher Education Modernization in MENA (World Bank/CMI).
www.cmimarseille.org/highereducation
A Partnership of the World Bank and the Marseille Center for Mediterranean Integration A Partnership of the World Bank and the Marseille Center for Mediterranean A Partnership of the World Bank and the Marseille Center for Mediterranean Integration
• Internationalization of Higher Education in MENA: Policy Issues Associated with Skills Formation and Mobility (World Bank).
• Breaking Even or Breaking Through: Reaching Financial Sustainability while Providing High Quality Standards in Higher Education in the Middle East and North Africa (AFD/World Bank).
TEL: +33 (0) 491992451/56 FAX: +33 (0) 491992479 VILLA VALMER - 271 CORNICHE KENNEDY 13007 MARSEILLE FRANCE
A Partnership of the World Bank and the Marseille Center for Mediterranean Integration (CMI)
About the Program Our Objective The University Governance & Quality Assurance Program stems from a partnership between the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) Human Development Department of the World Bank and the Marseille Center for Mediterranean Integration (CMI). Its objective is to address key challenges faced by higher education systems such as inconsistent quality of higher education institutions, and discrepancies between graduates’ skills and the skills demanded by the labor market.
Our Team The prorgram’s team is composed of international researchers and world class experts on governance, internationalization, and financing of higher education institutions, who work with University Presidents and Ministers of Education, Higher Education, and Finance in the region.
University Governance & Quality Assurance Program The Context
Meeting the Challenge
Higher education systems worldwide are faced with three challenges:
There are three ongoing initiatives within the UGQA Program:
• Providing young people with the skills required by the job market; • Improving access to high quality services; • Seeking out new sources of financing to cope with the growing student demand. Although most countries in the world are facing these same issues, the problem is particularly acute in MENA where student numbers have risen dramatically in the past ten years, with average enrollments climbing from 20 to 30 percent of the relevant age group in a ten year period and where university graduates have the highest unemployment rates in the world.
2) Seek Financial Sustainability: so that higher education institutions can meet growing student demand. In partnership with the French Development Agency, the Program held a workshop in January 2011 and launched a report Breaking Even or Breaking Through in October 2011.
Our Partners Partner institutions include the French Development Agency (AFD); the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD); the Arab Network for Quality Assurance in Higher Education (ANQAHE); the International Comparative Higher Education Finance and Accessibility Project; the State University of New York (SUNY); the Graduate School of Education at the University of Pennsylvania; the Mediterranean University Union (UNIMED); The Higher Education and Scientific Research at the Union for the Mediterranean; the Arab League Educational, Cultural, and Scientific Organization; the Islamic Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (ISESCO) and the British Council.
1) Improve University Governance: in December 11, 2011, in Abu Dhabi, the University Governance Screening Card, a benchmarking tool to measure university governance, was endorsed as a regional Arab League Initiative at a biannual conference for Arab Ministers of Higher Education. This initiative has the participation of over 100 universities from seven countries (Algeria, Egypt, Iraq, Lebanon, Morocco, Gaza & West Bank, Tunisia). The first benchmarking results are published in a report Universities Through the Looking Glass released in March 2012.
3) Higher Education Internationalization: to improve the skills and employability of students and raise the research and innovation capacity of institutions so that individuals with relevant skills choose to stay, work, and contribute to MENA’s growth rather than emigrate to faster growing economies. A report Internationalization of Higher Education in MENA was released in September 2011. Proportion of unemployed adults with a tertiary education degree