Qatars Educational Development - Term Paper Example

Qatar’s Educational Development Over the Last 10 Years Qatar’s Educational Development Over the Last 10 Years Introduction Qatar is a small country situated in the Middle East with a small population. It has vast oil resources and large amounts of natural gas reserves which account for the undeniable wealth that this country possesses. And although it is a small country in the aspect of size and population, Qatar has been aggressive and ambitious in reforming and restructuring their country to achieve progress in the industrial and social sector. It is also important to note that a significant part of its residents are expatriates who invest and work in the country. Thus, it is not surprising that major private industries in the country are largely controlled by foreigners. It must be realized that for the economy to flourish, these private sector companies must also be majorly occupied by the national residents of Qatar. It is argued that the previous educational system of Qatar, although well-structured and developed, did not produce competent enough individuals that can rise to the challenge and be the driving force for such private industries. With so much conflict in the Middle East, it is educational to see how countries like Qatar have managed to cope with the challenge of development amidst these adversities. The leadership in the Arabian Gulf nation of Qatar played a big contribution in giving focus to the educational department believing that it is the key to their economic and social progress (Brewer et al., 2007). It has been observed that in the past their educational system has not produced very good outcomes and their approach was very rigid, outdated and even obsolete to try and compete for world-class quality of education. It was believed that their education must also be on a par with their initiatives for social and economic changes that will catapult them into global competency. During the past years, the Qatar education has taken major reforms in order to augment their outdated system. With the modernization of society and the emergence of the expanding role of women, they have focused on giving larger roles and involvement to them, which was traditionally and historically avoided. They have also opened and developed satellite universities involving top educational institutions with high repute in the world-class quality of education. But a country like Qatar is very traditionalist and it is important to observe how they managed to implement drastic and decisive changes to their traditionally rigid form of doing things. At present, students are learning more of the English curriculum and less of Islam. Prestigious universities also are getting more involved in the country’s educational system. Background and History of Qatar Education Qatar has a unique status in the world’s economy because of its vast energy resources and because of its good strategic position. Therefore, because of its involvement with global trade and economy, it has managed to shift from a simple tribal community into a modern state in a very impressive fashion. It is important to note that before the discovery of its precious oil resources, the educational system of the country was very informal and crude. Most children only learned reading and writing from informal classes taught in mosques (Brewer et al, 2007). This is especially the case for almost every girl in the country, where this would be the only educational level and exposure that they were attaining. Through the course of the decades though, public schools were properly established and the girls were given as much exposure and involvement as the boys in the educational system and soon enough private schools emerged. But it is interesting to put into perspective that there were three types of private schools present: the community schools, which were mainly for the expatriates and were sponsored by embassies of the involved countries, the international schools, which do not follow a foreign curriculum and are not under the embassy and it caters for both Qataris and expatriates, and the third type is known as the private Arabic schools, wherein they follow the strict Arab curriculum and catered for the Qataris and other Arabs who want the traditional way of Qatar education. With aggressive policies to better the educational quality, free government-funded education for the Qatari and expatriate children have improved and heightened the literacy rates of the country. Illiteracy rate in 1997 was 13.6% and has been significantly improved to only 9% in 2004. This boom of educational attainment has also enabled the Qataris to outnumber foreigners in administrative and managerial positions. Since 2000, Qatar’s educational system also phased-out general education degrees in favor of more specific and competitive courses that will address, and be in line with, their economic growth. Also, in the modern era, it was very noticeable that the female population in colleges outnumbered the males and constituted about three-fourths of the university population. Glaring Statistics and Facts for Improvement Scientific complex schools were also introduced in the country for reform, but vast majority of schools remained unchanged. And their educational system still produced low quality educated individuals and most were not prepared for postsecondary education or even the workplace. They had a very alarming failure rate in their high school exit examination exams, and of those who passed the exam, only about 47% percent achieved high enough scores to garner acceptance into college. Not surprisingly, 63% of the successful entrants in college were female students. Qatari students weren’t also prepared for international studies. They had to undergo an Academic Bridge program in order to prepare their students to study in foreign universities. This obviously highlights the fact that even in 2001 their educational quality cannot match the educational requirements of universities and schools abroad. What was also alarming was that college graduates also have to undergo another remedial education after graduating in order for them to prepare and be ready for employment. This precludes the citizens from having greater participation in their economic institutions and business ventures. What was glaringly lacking in their system was the English education that was needed in order to be competitive, not forgetting that majority of their economic activities involved foreigners and global trade. This spurred the Qatari government to hire and establish partnership with RAND in order to analyze and improve their manner and content of their educational programs. Weakness of the Traditional Curriculum Although there were aggressive reforms during the previous decades in the education sector, it still proved insufficient. The whole ministry lacked clear vision and goals for their education despite their drive to better it. The Ministry also lacked unity in making the reforms, failing to consider the entirety of the whole system in developing the guiding principles of its improvement. Departments did not foster innovation and were working in isolation with respect to the whole system. The organization also had unclear channels and lacked a feedback mechanism and thus real issues were not addressed and accommodated. Adding to that, the schools and teachers were instructed to strictly follow the mandate of the Ministry in the curriculum it was teaching. With the already very faulty Ministry, the problems just trickled down to the whole educational system. Also, with the very rigid and dysfunctional system, revisions and updates of the curriculum were too infrequent and slow to cope with the pace and development of subject matters to be competitive enough with the global standards. The timetable for their education also was too short to cover all the important aspects that would enable their students to be well prepared for life after graduation. Even though Qatar is a relatively wealthy country, the resources were not properly allocated to address the problems in their school systems. Lack of modern equipment in schools and very low salaries for the teachers also contributed to the lack of quality education. These issues were the focus in the last decade, and in the next parts of the paper, how they tackled these predicaments will be further discussed Solutions to the Problem The most immediate concern of the Qatar educational system is to have clear and concise visions and goals in order for them to be focused. The policy makers were able to clearly depict the problems in this situation. Ever since 2003, the Qatari educational system shifted its focus from an Islamic traditional curriculum into inculcating more English learning structures and principles. This was a very bold reform in the Middle East because no other country has engaged in such drastic change in their systems. Not surprisingly, this newly formed vision was met with very negative feedbacks from the traditional and conservative leaders. But what should be realized is this was really the most logical move for an under quality educational system thriving in an internationally dependent economy. This bold move was met in a positive light by the international audience, believing that religion should have cutbacks in the curriculum. This is important to consider because religion has been, historically, the root cause of many wars and conflicts. Inculcating the ideas of eliminating infidels is very counter-productive to the whole global peace system. Cutting back the exposure of the citizens to religion will foster a much more peaceful and harmonious transition to peace especially in the Middle East. Qatar instead rewrote its books in order to prepare its citizens to be more participatory and economically competitive gearing it for a better future for the country. Prestigious American universities then have developed satellite institutions in Qatar in order to better the education situation. This also allowed the enticement of many other foreign countries to invest and be active in the educational system of Qatar. This has proven to be very effective and thus catapulting the country into a very competitive source of capable manpower for the economic development of the country in the global trade. New institutions were also established. The SEC and the Education and Evaluation Institutes were also established along with independent schools. This makes for a feedback channel that was lacking all along in their system. The independent schools also provide better diversity and more focused learning environment. The division of tasks has also been changed enabling a more cohesive unit that will function and gear the whole system towards a more unified standpoint. Incentives and school equipment were given better allocation from the government. As a result, progress was felt in the basic education and the students were achieving higher competency in college aptitude tests and abroad schooling. Conclusion The Qatar educational system has managed well to cope and remedy the problems in its educational system. Problems that plagued their system in the early years of the millennium were also addressed. In the Middle East, Qatar ranks among the best in its educational competency. This resulted directly in better economic growth. To this date, not only does Qatar have very rich natural energy resources, but also it has developed its manpower resources to better brave the global economy and provide competition in the international trade. References Brewer, D. J. et al. (2007). Education for a New Era: Design and Implementation of K-12 Education Reform in Qatar. RAND Corporation, Pittsburgh. “Qatar National Development Strategy 2011-2016”. (2011). Qatar Secretariat for Development Planning. Gulf Publishing and Printing Company, Doha. Read More