Arab Knowledge Report 2009: Towards Productive

BOX 3-4The Commission for the Deliberation ofEducational Content was establishedat the request of French PresidentFrancois Mitterrand with the purposeof revising the knowledge impartedby the educational system andensuring the unity and coherence ofthis knowledge. The commission,composed of prominent figures fromthe French intelligentsia and world ofeducation, submitted a report in 1989,recommending a series of generalprinciples that it deemed applicableanywhere at the present time. Amongthese principles are, firstly, the needto periodically review curricula inorder to introduce content requiredby scientific advancements and socialchange and, secondly, the need to givepriority among instruction and learningprocesses to methods of thinking thatare applicable to diverse domains,such as empirical, analytical, critical,deductive and historical thinking, overthe types of knowledge that are availableoutside the educational system or thatare accessible through other means. Athird principle is the need to strive forflexibility, gradualism, and horizontalcohesion and integration in educationalcontent on the basis of a cleareducational philosophy that explainswhy such knowledge is required andhow it should be acquired, includingthe amount of time that should beallocated to its instruction. Suchjustifications and conditions should reston the findings of research and studiesrevealing the methods that are mostconducive to learner acquisition of therequired knowledge. A fourth principleis the need to diversify methods ofdelivering the curricular content andperiodically to assess learners’ progressin terms of the curricular aims. Fifthis the need to transcend the artificialantithesis between theoretical andpractical knowledge by striving to mergethe acquisition of applied skills with theacquisition of theoretical or abstractAvailable statistics since 1970 indicatethat technical education has been unable toattract sufficient numbers of Arab youths.Until the end of the twentieth centurythe exceptions to this rule were Egypt,Tunisia, 49 Bahrain, and Djibouti, joinedlater by Jordan and Lebanon. Only afterThe knowledge students should acquire:the contemporary French approachknowledge, and the need to transcendthe divide between the sciences andhumanities by reinforcing awarenessof their overlapping dimensions in thevarious subjects taught.In a study conducted at the requestof UNESCO, Edgar Morin 48 definedseven types of knowledge that learnersshould derive from the educationalsystem. These are:1. Awareness of the nature ofknowledge and how to obtain it,the difficulties involved and therisks of error and illusion;2. Development of the naturalinclination to contextualise andcategorise information, andstrengthening the ways ofcomprehending the relationshipsbetween the whole and the parts;3. Awareness of the unity ofmankind, physically, intellectually,sociologically, and culturally;4. Awareness of the unity of theplanet earth and the humanspecies and the difficulties bothhave experienced and continue toencounter;5.6.7.How to confront the uncertaintiesscientific advancement hascreated in all aspects of life and howto accept uncertainty where there isno means of attaining certainty;An understanding of socialphenomena with an eye to thosedimensions that can fosterunderstanding between peoples;Awareness of the ethical dimensionso as to develop the consciousnessthat a person is an individual, amember of society, and a memberof the human species, that therelationship between the individualand society must be organised onthe bases of democracy and respectfor rights, and that the relationshipbetween societies must beorganised on the bases of mutualunderstanding and membership ina single human species.the beginning of the twenty-first centurydid Syria, Iraq, and Algeria follow suit,albeit to a lesser extent. 50One could say that, during the lastthree decades of the twentieth century, theeducational systems in the Arab region wereable to create a critical mass of technicianscapable of meeting the demands of thelabor market in only Egypt, Tunisia,Bahrain, and Lebanon. As a result, Arabcountries made do with under-qualifiedlocal labor or imported expertise,whether from other Arab countries orabroad. 51 Nevertheless, with the turn ofthe twenty-first century, there has beennoticeable improvement. Enrolment intechnical secondary education has reachedacceptable levels in about half the Arabcountries, 52 which can now boast of, or arewell on their way to forming, a critical massof young technicians with the knowledgeand know-how to meet the demands of theknowledge economy, if not the knowledgesociety. 53THE ROLE OF HIGHEREDUCATION IN THEFORMATION OF KNOWLEDGECAPITALQuantitative indicatorsThere is no consensus over universallyapplicable criteria for ideal or preferableratios for the distribution of studentsbetween higher technical and universityeducation. To develop such criteria onewould have to have an accurate pictureof the (generally domestic) needs of thejob market for technical or universityqualifications. The globalisation andopening up of labor markets, and theconsequent occupational mobilityand migration, have compounded thedifficulties in identifying these needs.The available data on the intake at thetertiary educational level in Arab countries 54show that from under 1 per cent to around31 per cent join the vocational stream.The countries can be categorised intothree groups in this respect. The first, with112 ARAB KNOWLEDGE REPORT 2009