Internationalization of Tertiary Education in the Middle East and North Africa

Abstract

The Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region is one which today faces several social, political and economic challenges, including political instability, and high levels of unemployment and youth exclusion. Young people, often leaving education without the right mix of knowledge and skills needed for today’s rapidly changing labor markets, can face stark choices. Many will find themselves pressed between unemployment, underemployment, informal and precarious work, at best, with pressures to emigrate and the risks of irregular migration channels, at worst. In parallel, global trends are veering towards increased nationalism and identity politics, with the hardening of borders and increasing anti-immigration sentiment around the world. However, as the recent global crisis of the new coronavirus (COVID-19) has shown us, with the virus sweeping across the globe regardless, national borders are not concrete and unpassable, but purely a human construction. Moreover, the measures put in place as part of governments’ attempts to contain the virus, such as travel bans and closing of borders, have demonstrated how critical a role mobility plays in today’s globalized world. Set against these regional and global contexts, a shift away from the national, an “opening up” towards the regional – or international – appears imperative. At the same time, in order to combat some of the interconnected challenges faced by MENA and beyond, reforms must be put in place to ensure that the youth are adequately equipped and skilled for entry into regional labor markets, ready to take on active roles in transforming their region, to foster peace, stability, and inclusion. This, in turn, requires serious investments in human capital, including a rethinking of education to include increased, smarter mobility, not only of people, but also of knowledge and skills. This report attempts to demonstrate that, as an important part of the reforms needed in education and training, the internationalization of tertiary education has a role to play. The internationalization of tertiary education represents an outward looking element in which tertiary education institutions “internationalize” their curricula, establish partnerships, collaboration, and joint programs with other institutions across borders, and where student and staff mobility are key elements, although many activities can also be developed at the home institutions.