AMMAN — Pundits
questioned the viability and advantages of a planned merger between the
Ministry of Education with the Ministry of Higher Education and Scientific
Research.
اضافة اعلان
They contend that
the role of the
Ministry of Higher Education has traditionally been confined to
assisting in the administrative and financial affairs of private universities,
but has barely interfered with their curriculum.
Nevertheless, the
government’s decision to amalgamate the two ministries is widely seen as a step
by the state to distance itself completely from the business of private
universities.
“The merger
decision is not new,” proclaimed Fakher Al-Daas, a coordinator for the activist
group, the National Campaign for Defending Students’ Rights, commonly known as
Thabahtoona.
“We don’t see it as
a merger, but rather a cancelation of the Ministry of Higher Education and
Scientific Research because it seems that the government wants to gradually
distance itself from the affairs of the universities,” Daas told
Jordan News.
Last Sunday,
Prime Minister Bisher Al-Khasawneh announced plans for public sector modernization.
He told a press conference that a road map identified seven components that
form the framework of the process of modernization of the public sector and
that need to be dealt with as top priority: government services, procedures and
digitization, organizational structure and governance, policy and decision
making, human resources, legislation, and nurturing an institutional culture.
Khasawneh also announced
that “government ministries and departments will be merged between 2022 and
2024, without prejudice to the rights of workers or dispensing with their
services”.
He asserted that a
modernization committee assessed “97 government departments and institutions,
excluding the security services, armed forces, and municipalities”.
Khasawneh added
that the seven components focus on serving the public in line with the output
of the economic and political modernization visions.
According to the
prime minister, the first phase of the program will end in 2025, when its
impact will be evaluated and the second phase will be designed.
Under the public
sector modernization plan, the Ministry of Education and Higher Education and
Scientific Research will merge with the Vocation Training Corporation under one
entity to be called the “Ministry of Education and Human Resources
Development”.
The merger is
expected to be completed during 2022–2023.
While the state
committee held scores of meetings and workshops with various groups to assess
any possible ramifications from combing the education ministries, serving
university presidents said they were not consulted, Al-Ghad News reported.
Fawwaz Abed Al-Haq,
president of The Hashemite University, told
Jordan News that the business
of all universities across the Kingdom should be independent of the Ministry of
Education.
He suggested that a
council for higher education be established, as was the case before a Ministry
of Higher Education and Scientific Research came to existence.
“All the university
affairs should be brought back to the universities themselves, including the
process of hiring and firing, and bonuses,” Haq said. That should not be under
the jurisdiction of any ministry, just like in other countries.”
Haq blamed the
debts of universities on their low tuition fees, as set by the Ministry of
Higher Education. He gave an example of the tuition of a student majoring in
English language, saying his fee is JD65 per one credit hour at the Hashemite
University, but JD16 at the state-run Yarmouk University.
Daas, the
Thabahtoona coordinator, said he expected a hike in tuition fees in all
universities following the merger.
He pointed to a
declining quality of education in general in pre-graduate institutions across
Jordan, stemming from a shortage of an estimated 10,000 teachers and
administrators at Jordanian schools.
Education expert khalid Tqatqah praised the merger decision,
saying it will have a positive impact on the education quality since human
resources are now involved with the education in one ministry. “This will
improve the hiring process,” he noted.
Read more Features
Jordan News
.jpg)
.jpg)
