Higher education in Jordan — who to blame and how to improve

The higher education system in Jordan promotes and encourages high standards of teaching, scholarship and research, and contributes to national and international developments in these areas.

The new higher education framework includes proposals for an increase in the number of students. It also emphasises the importance of quality in teaching and learning in universities.

Due to the rapid expansion of Jordan’s higher education system, there is now a more diverse range of higher education institutions, both public and private. Such diversity may have compromised quality.

The challenges higher education faces in Jordan include: having to teach an increasing number of students; keeping costs down; maintaining standards; producing more effective graduates; lack of higher education assessment (e.g., internal auditing); and, more importantly, brain drain.

Over the last five years, hundreds of PhD holders left for the Gulf countries where the salary is at least four times higher.

It has been noted that there is a shortage of about 5,000 teaching staff in the country.

Inequity at the work place was one of the driving forces of the serious brain drain. As a result, academic standards in Jordanian universities are probably declining.

The quality of higher education institutions in Jordan, in terms of teaching and learning, has suffered due to economic constraints and other factors. However, there are strong expectations that a strict governance selection process and quality assurance mechanisms will ensure continuous quality control and improvement.

Students’ learning is influenced by their prior knowledge, motivation, personality, outlook on learning and learning approaches, among other things.

Changes in the past few years included an increase in the number of students studying for Tawjihi (national high school examination) for entrance to universities.

As more of them are achieving higher grades, many more students are entering universities, including mature students who qualify through a variety of courses.

As a result, many believe that academic standards are dropping and student intake is much more diverse than in the past.

Students are also to blame. They expect to be spoon-fed and lack initiative. 

We give them handouts but they never read them. We tell them exactly what pages in their books to read, but they do not read them.

They expect to be told exactly what to do, and complain if they are told to go and find things out for themselves.

Blame can also be put on the teaching staff. Though the lecture as a learning environment is extremely cost-effective in terms of faculty-student ratio, it could be useless in the hands of unskilled lecturers.

Therefore, teaching staff qualifications and dedication should be reviewed and they should pass a proficiency examination before being admitted to the lecture room.

Usually, staff is appointed on the strength of its research background, not teaching.

With so many students’ essays and assignments to mark, they may find themselves unable to do the job properly.

Staff should understand that good teaching is teaching that helps students learn how to think and not what to think.

Good teaching discourages a superficial approach to learning and encourages active engagement with the subject matter. Moreover, it motivates the students to learn, and increases their desire to understand and persevere.

It creates independence, respect for the truth and a desire to pursue learning. The reward for good teaching should not only be received in heaven.

The system can be blamed as well.

Governance selection is unfair, which causes frustration and brain drain.

There are far too many students and there is not enough time for adequate counselling or assessment.

Teaching is considered a poor second to research in terms of its value to staff.

There is currently no research into teaching. Laboratories are inadequate with respect to teaching. In addition, teaching assistants are not adequately trained. Practicum is far less than theory in the curricula.

There is a need to change the attitude to teaching and learning. This can be achieved by encouraging the staff to read and think about teaching, and develop new teaching techniques.

The top management should adopt objective assessment techniques (e.g., internal auditing) and reward good teaching.

The writer, ahed@just.edu.jo, is professor at Jordan University of Science and Technology and member of the National Committee for Human Resources Development. He contributed this article to
The Jordan Times.