Abstract
Higher education in Jordan has been tied closely to the state-building process in the century since the modern Hashemite state's foundation in 1921, with its explicit purpose being to educate and train high volumes of students who are competent and capable to serve as contributors to the state's development. Though this purpose has largely been successful to date, it is becoming increasingly clear that more is needed than simply issuing degrees. In an increasingly globalized world, it is necessary to educate those who can contribute to future research arenas and labor markets over which a single state has limited control. Within this perspective, we detail the evolved societal position that higher education institutions in Jordan occupy and how that position has made such institutions a liability in the nation's continued sustainable development. It is important to emphasize that we do not address here classical sustainability issues, but rather focus on more fundamental and culturally-relevant issues pertaining to the survivability of universities in Jordan upon which more global sustainability views and solutions can be predicated. Specifically, we outline the unsustainability of impersonal, inefficient and ineffective infrastructure, centralization of policies and academic practices, lack of autonomy and/or self-governance, considerable financial dependence on the state, and a general hesitation for higher education institutions to seek boldly societal and economic impact beyond the simple production of graduates. To counter this unsustainability, we propose a three-pronged approach that can help catalyze the re-imagining of Jordan's higher education institutions so that they become maximally effective contributors to the state's future sustainable development. Our proposed approach is based on (i) internally decentralizing higher education institutions to enable greater autonomy and academic freedom, (ii) re-purposing these institutions to become more student-centric, and (iii) embracing diversity and academic community recognition. Finally, it is the intention of this perspective to highlight not only those challenges facing higher education institutions in Jordan, but also to present clearly the necessary and practical steps that institutions themselves may take immediately to ensure their relevance in, and impact on, modern society.
Highlights
It is a truth almost universally acknowledged that the greatest resource of any nation is its people, and that future prosperity and sustainability lies in unlocking that peoples’ innovative capacity to explore, discover and create
Though the region in which present-day Jordan is located has been at the center of human conversations on innovation and the application of knowledge for thousands of years, the modern state of Jordan has reached a point where critical assessment and reform of its higher education institutions is vital, to ensure that innovation, scientific output, and sustainable solutions spring forth for current and future generations
The developmental timeline of modern higher education in Jordan may be categorized into four distinct phases (Mazawi, 2005; Buckner, 2011; Adely et al, 2019): (i) Creation of vocational training institutes in the 1950s to prepare students for teaching positions at compulsory school levels; (ii) Establishment of the first 4-year-degree national university, the University of Jordan, in 1961 to meet society’s growing demands for further educational opportunities yielding more advanced skillsets; (iii) Expansion of the public university system in the 1980s to continue meeting rising demands by providing educational services to a larger citizenry in diverse geographic areas; and (iv) Proliferation of private and public universities starting in the 1990s to capitalize on a thirst for upward social mobility through education
Summary
It is a truth almost universally acknowledged that the greatest resource of any nation is its people, and that future prosperity and sustainability lies in unlocking that peoples’ innovative capacity to explore, discover and create. The underlying driving force for this modern development was, and continues to be, the state, which has viewed higher education as a tool for training high volumes of students to be competent and capable members of society who serve the state’s historically largely centrally-planned economic development.
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