Al-Hawaj in a symposium at Ameer bin Rajab Cultural Majlis: Private universities are eligible to pump 2 billion dinars into the economy every year
Integration with government universities.. is a must
The Founding President – Chairman of the Board of Trustees of Ahlia University Professor Abdulla Bin Yusuf Al-Hawaj said that private universities in the Kingdom of Bahrain are eligible to pump BD2 billion into the national economy annually.
Al-Hawaj also stressed the need to achieve integration between public and private universities. Besides that, the public universities should not compete with private universities so that the educational system can be upgraded and enabled to carry out its assigned role to the fullest.
This came during a cultural evening in which Professor Al-Hawaj spoke in Ameer bin Rajab Cultural Majlis and was attended by a number of elites, intellectuals, university professors and businessmen in the Kingdom.
In addition to that, Al-Hawaj revealed that private university education is currently undergoing a transition phase that may elevate the Kingdom of Bahrain to the ranks of developed countries in the field of knowledge industry, artificial intelligence, technology adaptation and the development of simulation tools with the information revolution.
He also mentioned that the requirements for the success of this stage will not be out of reach, especially because the Kingdom has completed the various regulations of proficiency related to university education comparable to that in developed countries and it competes with counterparts in the region.
He also stressed that all these aspirations are just around the corner from the verification platforms and this is just after governing the private university education by laws, institutions and sources of classification and knowledge. In addition to that, the existence of the Higher Education Council and the Quality Assurance Authority for Education and Training, which helps Private universities in their transitional phase, linking between the starting point which is the foundation phase that is represented by the establishment of Ahlia University in 2001, and the ending point which is the establishment of three international universities that will be open soon, bringing the total of private universities in the Kingdom to more than 16 universities. Based on that, this will lead us to search for new student markets that are larger than the limited one that provided by the Kingdom of Bahrain.
Professor Al-Hawaj stressed that the Gulf Cooperation Council countries should be the strategic depth that students come from as in the years 2008-2010 when our private universities in Bahrain hosted more than 16,000 Gulf students, Which led to the operation of Jazeera Airways full crew on a daily trip between Bahrain and Kuwait. He also added that we have to set our hands in the hands of various Kingdom agencies to market our private universities with the highest quality standards and the highest classifications from the international standardization and classification institutions.
Al-Hawaj said in response to more than one question about the obstacles facing this sector and how to overcome them, that the Kingdom is sparing no effort to support this pioneering sector in the country, pointing out that the leadership always provides the necessary encouragement and support mechanisms to strengthen the foundations of our private universities and enable them to compete on both Regional and international levels.
Al-Hawaj also revealed that the launch of the private university education process in the Kingdom of Bahrain dates back to the early 1990s when he and two academic colleagues,the late Dr. Abdullah Hamad Al-Mujel and Dr. Bakr Ahmed Hassan, decided that there should be Harvard, Duke or Stanford in the Kingdom that our students can study in it rather than sending them abroad, wondering with his colleagues at the time, and why not bring the world to our country, rather than sending our beloved children?
‘’the dream came true when the National Action Charter was launched and I was fortunate to be chosen to represent the education sector by royal decree in the High Committee of the Charter. I succeeded with colleagues in developing an explicit article that would encourage the establishment of private and civil universities as civilized and scientific beacons. The Committee immediately approved it and was voted within the other provisions of the Charter to get a popular consensus supported by 98.4% of the people who believe in the great reform project of His Majesty the King. Ahlia University was launched as the first private university in the Kingdom in 2001 and then the establishment of private universities which now the total number of private universities are 13.’’
He pointed to the importance of education in the developed world, noting the Japanese and German experiments after the Second World War, as well as the South Korean experience, which includes one of the oldest universities in the world, “800 years”, and it is the same university that emerged from Samsung Company. In addition to that, the Australian experience which appointed a foreign students affairs minister.
Al-Hawaj concluded his speech with a famous statement by the late French leader Charles de Gaulle as he prepares to leave office ‘’I do not fear France as long as it has fair justice and enlightened education.’’
[ngg src=”galleries” ids=”36″ display=”basic_thumbnail”]
