Arab Knowledge Report 2009: Towards Productive

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BOX 4-2Evaluating the Performance of Projects to Network Educational InstitutionsThe world’s universities were active throughout the1980s and 1990s in the creation of networks linkingtheir campuses and faculties and in linking theirresearch laboratories with counterparts worldwide.A number of Arab countries over the last decadehave created computer networks to link theiruniversities. The dominant pattern in the work ofthese networks is directed at displaying summaryinformation around educational activities andscientific research. Content on many websites ofthese networks and the universities they comprisehas also not been kept up to date.On the other hand, some Arab countries 29 arepartners in implementing regional projects andinitiatives aimed at creating a network infrastructurethat links their scientific and research institutionsglobally. Among these is the Consortium of ArabMediterranean Research and Education Networks(CAMREN), which aims to set up the infrastructurefor e-services and applications to assist researchersin the region (Nawwar al-‘Awwa, background paperfor this Report, in Arabic). It is planned that thisproject will allow the utilisation of computingresources available in the partner institutions vianetworked computing applications. Such projectssecure the high computing power necessary toutilise specialist software such as simulation andvirtual reality applications. They help to createnew learning environments based on multimediaapplications, online lectures, and other means toenrich Arabic content on the net and escape thetraditional approaches prevailing in many Arabeducational institutions.One of the potential benefits of the availabilityof internet services is to make it possible forschools to communicate with each other and withthe government bodies concerned with supportingthem and monitoring their performance. A veryimportant initiative on this level is the endeavourby the Supreme Education Council in Qatar tomonitor the performance of schools that offer basiceducational services on the internet and to publishregular reports that review their progress in a rangeof respects. 30The link betweenICT use and highereducation in the Arabcountries is weakfor upper-income countries is 5.26. 28 Interms of the immediate future, the currentplans of the Arab states for the provisionof computers to schools and through theseof internet access cannot be described asoverly ambitious.The link between ICT use and highereducation in the Arab countries is weak.This makes it imperative to providecomputers at low cost, and to orienteducational curricula design in a directionthat stimulates computer and internetuse within the educational process, as isthe case in many countries. The numberof virtual universities in the Arab Worldremains low. 31 The first virtual universitywas founded in Syria in the last decade.A virtual university has also been setup in Tunisia. 32 Cairo University incooperation with UNESCO has foundedvirtual faculties. Ain Shams University isalso cooperating with the MediterraneanVirtual University to offer a collectionof study materials via the internet. Thee-academy in Jordan can be considered amodel for virtual universities created in theArab countries. The Arab Open Universityadopts some forms of e-learning since ituses multimedia computer resources.ICT also offers valuable opportunitiesfor communication between educationalinstitutions of various levels and withthe bodies concerned with evaluatingtheir performance (see Box 4-2). Suchcommunication has the greatest influencein knowledge dissemination and inperformance evaluation on the national,regional, and international levels.The lessons derived from a review ofglobal trends in exploiting ICT in educationcan be summarised as follows:1. Introduction of wholesale changes toeducational curricula to make it possibleto offer them on the internet.2. Eradication of computer illiteracy forworkers in all aspects of education andeducational administration.3. Provision of schools with appropriatecomputer hardware and internet access,and reliance on open source software atall educational levels.4. Development and deployment of theconcepts, tools, and software of selflearning.5. Strengthening the partnership betweenschool, home, and community byutilising available technology.The number ofvirtual universitiesin the Arab Worldremains lowINFORMATION AND COMMUNICATIONS TECHNOLOGIES IN THE ARAB COUNTRIES161
In contradiction tothe call to restrict therole of the state inall matters impingingon economic activity,government bodiesin the Arab countriesmust play a directrole in facilitatingand organisinge-commerceactivities and findlegal solutions thatallow challengesto be confrontedE-COMMERCEWhile “e-commerce” is a relatively recentterm, use of computers, communicationsnetworks, and what is called electronic datainterchange goes back to the 1960s. Atthat time however, it was restricted to largeinstitutions, companies, and banks usingmainframe computers. Regardless of theproblems that still confront e-commerce,it is expected to continue to proliferateand generate expanded opportunitiesfor trade exchange and competition.These will be followed by attemptsto develop methods of production, expandchoices available to the consumer, andopen up access by small and mediumbusinesses to wider markets.Figure 4-9 sheds light on the growthof internet use by businesses–in mostof the world’s countries (the blue dots)and some Arab countries (the largersquares)–when plotted against growth inper capita income. The graph also showsthe position for some groups of countries(the circles). The correlation coefficient,which measures the strength of therelationship between pairs of variablesin such cases, reveals that for most of theworld’s countries there is a marked positivecorrelation between the indicator scoreand per capita income. However, the graphalso shows that the distribution of scoreson the indicator of the extent of businessinternet use for the Arab countries doesnot strongly correlate with per capitaincome. 33In contradiction to the call to restrict therole of the state in all matters impinging oneconomic activity, government bodies inthe Arab countries must play a direct rolein facilitating and organising e-commerceactivities and find legal solutions thatallow challenges to be confronted andthe opportunities they present to beexploited. In this context, the formulationFIGURE 4-9Change in business internet use plotted against per capita incomein some Arab countries and worldwide6.5WorldArab countriesGroup of CountriesExtent of business internet use, indicator value (1-7)6R 2 = 0.67755.554.54Tunisia WorldUAER 2 = 0.1113Egypt JordanMENA3.5 MauritaniaKuwaitQatarBahrain3Morocco2.5Algeria20 5,000 10,000 15,000 20,000 25,000 30,000 35,000 40,000 45,000Per Capita GDP in US $ (PPP)Source: World Bank database, Knowledge Assessment Methodology (KAM), http://info.worldbank.org/etools/kam2/KAM_page5.asp162 ARAB KNOWLEDGE REPORT 2009
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United Nations Development Programm
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This Report has been produced throu
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This year’s report may perhapsbes
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ICT in the Arab countries and reinf
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CONTENTSPREAMBLEIntroductionPrelimi
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Quantitative indicatorsTertiary edu
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LIST OF BOXESBox 1 The Effect of th
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Figure 5-7 Published scientific art
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Table 21 Time devoted to secondary
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The knowledgefield and revolutionto
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The literature onhuman rights place
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Arabic istechnologicallypoor in com
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Intercommunicationwith the self mea
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Table 2CountryGroupGroup 1: Oilecon
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Figure 2504540353025201510508070605
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In the period2003-2007, morethan 83
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eversion, in many cases, is not ass
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Thus the Arab region in general, an
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knowledge over recent years. This w
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However, this progress remains limi
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CHAPTER ONETHE THEORETICAL FRAMEWOR
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The successfuldeployment ofthe know
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The knowledgerevolution atthe end o
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Technology, theeconomy, andsociety,
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No one pursuesknowledge forits own
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The Report adoptsa concept ofknowle
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The goal of thiscritical review isn
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In our bidfor economicand humandeve
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The political reformproject remains
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Globalisation isdependent oninforma
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The battle overknowledge in oursoci
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The most obviousexample of the gapb
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BOX 1-9The Virtual as an Interrogat
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The upsurge intechnologicalprowess
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Collective humaneffort must bedirec
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End Notes1Epistemic saturation refe
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CHAPTER TWOARAB KNOWLEDGE PERFORMAN
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current economic crisis in the autu
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FIGURE 2-3Perceptions of corruption
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technology infrastructure, blogs ar
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nations continue to occupy their pr
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to the third oil boom, which reache
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have realised a degree of progress
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FIGURE 2-8Index of global competiti
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FIGURE 2-10Net exports of manufactu
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namely the spread of poverty, socia
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TABLE 2-2Arab Countries according t
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while some of these nine countries
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and political participation. All of
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first INTEL computer club; INTELis
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from the ages of thirteen to twenty
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solutions that allow use of the ava
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to this trajectory, a consumer, not
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specific cases.These flexibilities
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CHAPTER THREEEDUCATION AND THE FORM
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FIGURE 3-1Education and human resou
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of the qualitative knowledge capita
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TABLE 3-1CountryOpportunities for b
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Virtually the only area in which Ar
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must possess if they aspire to part
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TABLE 3-2Opportunities for the form
Page 128 and 129: General secondary education andthe
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Page 132 and 133: Available data shows large discrepa
Page 134 and 135: TABLE 3-3Comparison of overall resu
Page 136 and 137: females. According to this data, to
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Page 142 and 143: FIGURE 3-6aMaths performance of eig
Page 144 and 145: BOX 3-8The Contribution of Non-Publ
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Page 148 and 149: emained encumbered by the prevailin
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Page 152 and 153: countries and providing a picture o
Page 154 and 155: information systems. The available
Page 156: 89Finland, for example, whose stude
Page 160 and 161: CHAPTER FOURINFORMATION AND COMMUNI
Page 162 and 163: FIGURE 4-1ICT index values for Arab
Page 164 and 165: countries and the Arab countries. T
Page 166 and 167: Arab countries-Egypt, Algeria, Leba
Page 168 and 169: of Arabic content and its low rate
Page 170 and 171: exchange of future technology servi
Page 172 and 173: of national partnerships aimed at s
Page 174 and 175: TABLE 4-2Readiness of Arab countrie
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Page 180 and 181: of common principles that guarantee
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Page 184 and 185: FIGURE 4-11Paper consumption and in
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Page 188 and 189: TECHNOLOGICAL ADVANCEAND FUTURE INI
Page 190 and 191: within bounds that do not hinder bu
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Page 194 and 195: 21As a result of the nature of comp
Page 196: CHAPTER FIVEARAB PERFORMANCE IN RES
Page 199 and 200: FIGURE 5-1Innovation system index f
Page 201 and 202: The extremely lowamounts spentby Ar
Page 203 and 204: It has become clearthat the wager o
Page 205 and 206: Joint researchprojects among Arabsc
Page 207 and 208: Theoretically, themore researcherst
Page 209 and 210: Average expenditureon scientific re
Page 211 and 212: BOX 5-6Jordan’s “A Professor in
Page 213 and 214: BOX 5-8For the last three decades,
Page 215 and 216: FIGURE 5-7Published scientific arti
Page 217 and 218: A review of theperiod from 2002to 2
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Page 221 and 222: Most Arabic-languageperiodicals in
Page 223 and 224: Arab societies arefilled with examp
Page 225 and 226: Human capitalis among Arabcountries
Page 227 and 228: TABLE 5-12Trade in technological pr
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It is ironic thatalthough the Arabw
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End Notes1UNESCO Institute for Stat
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CHAPTER SIXBUILDING THE KNOWLEDGE S
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The most conspicuousfeature of thek
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A review of nationalplans in the Ar
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The positiveachievements inthe Arab
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One of the keyfoundations of thevis
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Freedom andinstitutionalisationare
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Priorities are subjectto a great de
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If we admit thatlanguage is avehicl
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The major challengelies in changing
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Deployment is linkedto the creation
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The variousproposals includedin thi
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ReferencesReferences in Arabic‘Ab
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the President of the ICRC Expresses
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al-Duwal al-‘Arabiyya, UNESCO’s
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Sen, Amartya. 1999. Development asF
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Castells, Manuel. (1998/2001). LaSo
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the Age of Technology).• Binsa‘
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egional and international levels an
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ANNEX 3. MEASUREMENT OF THE ARABCOU
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indicators that make up the pillar.
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countries’ rankings among the cou
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of the Arab countries and suffer fr
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Freedom House and Heritage Institut
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Endnotes* This annex was prepared b
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STATISTICAL ANNEXGENERAL INDICATORS
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Table 3: Economic IndicatorsCountry
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KNOWLEDGE PERFORMANCE ENVIRONMENTST
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Table 7: Press Freedom Index in the
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EDUCATIONTable 9: Adult literacy ra
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Table 11: Gross enrolment ratios in
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Table 13: Adult illiterate populati
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Table 16: Net and gross enrolment i
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Table 18: Lessons in basic educatio
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Table 20: Literacy rates among youn
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Table 22: Evolution of enrolment ra
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Table 24: Student enrolment rates i
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Table 26: Distribution of graduates
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Table 28: Estimated educational lev
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Table 30: Enrolment rates in non-go
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RESEARCH AND INNOVATIONTable 32: Nu
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Table 34: Indicators on research an
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INFORMATION AND COMMUNICATION TECHN
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FIGURE b-2Growth in average number
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competition between the internet se
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Table c-4: Ranking of a group of Ar
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United Nations Development Programm
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