In my opinion, the administrator first and last is the people of those countries and their governments before they are foreign interventions.
Research Proposal Destruction of Education in Iraq: Systematically Work or Arbitrarily
Education destruction in third world countries might due to the following possible reasons:
1) War - whether is civil car or war with external countries, this will bring destruction of educational facilities, students fear to go to schools, universities etc
2) Lack of Budget / Financial Support from Authority - inadequate financial support will render the setting up / upgrade of educational & research facilities in schools & universities become impossible, hence quality of education & research suffers deterioration.
3) Schools or Universities' Mismanagement - due to incompetency or lack of integrity of some schools or universities management, funds provided were not being used optimally or misappropriation of public funds do happen.
4) Lack of Research Culture from University Management - causing lack of new / knowledge contribution or intellectual properties creation, deteriorating of university ranking etc.
5) Due to some of the above reasons, more & more parents decided to send their children to overseas / developed countries for better education - indirectly this will also destroy the education in home country.
6) "Hijacking" of Local Country's Talents by Oversea Countries / Universities - oversea countries / universities that offer scholarship, guaranteed job upon graduation, citizenship etc to talented local students will cause "brain drain" in which lack of talented students might pull down the overall students' study performance or educational system within the local country.
The answer of ranking can be in any order, however the Contributors to education follows the ideals of , Accessibility of education to all, coupled with compulsory education.
Hence to re-position the fallen educational system both in quality and quantity, requires stringent implementation of lesson's learnt being embedded from the planning stage of restructure.
I agree with you Ali in the fact that bad management is destroying education.
I still believe that since education is mainly controlled by politicians in developing countries, it's the politicians who have no concern that destroy it. How difficult to find good, honest and caring politicians! Some of them can change good education policies for the worse instead of for the better. Here is a good link.
http://www.cgdev.org/sites/default/files/archive/doc/full_text/CGDBriefs/3120835/rebirth-education-brief-pritchett.html
What is the effect of education? More or less intelligent people who can participate actively in the world and play a selfdecisive role - i think. So let´s think who does not like this as a Person like this cannot be controlled so easily like before....
Several factors contributing to the sad state of the education and research in the developing world::
1. The bureaucratic set up existing in these countries, which is reluctant to any positive change and creative thinking;
2. The attitude of teachers in schools, colleges, and universities that students are only for obeying the teachers and not for free inquiry;
3. The attitude of simply following the developed countries without exploiting home advantages;
4. Lack of coordination between education and research;
and
5. Poor selection policy of choosing teachers in schools and Institutions of Higher Learning.
Perhaps a determinant factor in education is the dominant society narrative.
A few English-speaking countries are overly concerned with law, and their brightest minds flock to legal studies instead of, say, science & engineering. Some other countries - France, say, or Australia - have a focus on science, and scientific achievement there is well-regarded and striven for.
Could it be the case that some other countries' narratives are overly focused on, say, religion or history or other themes that should be background rather than foreground narratives ?
For the countries that have been bombarded (like Iraq), responsible are those who dropped the bombs.
For other countries, situation is more complicated...
Dear all,
First of all, I will say not destruction as nothing is destroyed, since there was not such a well functioning education system established in the first place, but I will say not be able to grow as it should be and bring the required and equivalent changes of lives to their societies and to advancements of science and knowledge.
Education in such countries is paralyzed due to lack of vision, accountability and purpose of governments that are controlled by inept and short sighted political leaders, who can not have vision more than what they need to built good homes for themselves and built roads from their homes to their offices and some international hotels for show case. These people need and in fact prey only to have sleeping society that is devoid of not only knowledge but any political information that creates awareness and social consciousness to challenge and perturb their rules. Education policies need far sighted, selfless and visionary people who make priority policies and work towards empowering that society.
In developing countries which have had a knowledge tradition, problems listed below have destructed education:
1. Historical circumstances wherein under threat and onslaught of the west all energies had been diverted to ward them off.
2. Whatever, educational system developed under foreigners was to develop an administrative set up that is in producing clerks whether ordinary or dignified among natives to facilitate the administration and policies of colonisers.
3. After independence, the persons sent to be educated and trained in developed countries, seldom returned to become backbone of indigenous educational system. Previous king of Saudi Arabia to set up a university off the Jedah coast is destined not to materialised as not only Westerners scholars and scientists have decline to teach there in spite of higher enumeration and facilities, but also from Arab World are not ready to leave the glamour of the Western life.
4. Knowledge have become a lucrative economy and the West does not want to loose it, therefore, bright minds from the developing countries are lured.
5. Educational policies of developing countries have not come out of there already recognised weaknesses.
6. In most countries scientific aptitude is lacking and they want to remain in the darkness of superstition. There is rhetoric of golden past. And, there is always present a misplaced doubt among several communities including Muslims that education leads ultimately to atheism or adoption of western lifestyle undermining with disdain traditional way of life (for this a few educated person as exemplar are responsible).
7. In democratic developing countries with multiple political parties, if a party in power develops a forward looking educational policy, the other party when in power wrap it up and effect a backward looking policy.
8. Political leaders and administrators are more interested in sharing power and money than caring nations.
In my opinion not all third world countries have bad education system. Third world countries are not allied countries to NATO or to ex communist bloc. They belong to Latin American countries, India, middle east, Africa .. If the question is related to Arab countries, there is not a destruction, but a none evolution according to standards, and sometimes biased political opinions and decisions from people who have nothing to do with education which is a question purely professional, belonging to education experts and neuron and social scientists. In major Arab countries politicians use education same as accommodations too as propaganda tools. So, for achieving their purpose they need people from politics who are able to master the propaganda mechanism rather than good and professional work. Those people' usually external to education professionals or not interested by a career in education' are able to destroy the system for the purpose of their benefit searching political leaders' sympathy, posts, good salary and social incomes.
So who are able to destroy or devalue any thing are selfish politicians out of any control;
For Iraq it s another question, since this country was under 2 wars
Sometimes the persons who control education decide to benchmark the education in a certain country (A), that is not the best model to follow. It is necessary to find the right systems of education to benchmark. Have a look:
"Shanghai-China, and Singapore were top in maths, with students in Shanghai scoring the equivalent of nearly three years of schooling above most OECD countries. Hong Kong-China, Chinese Taipei, Korea, Macao-China, Japan, Liechtenstein, Switzerland and the Netherlands were also in the group of top-performing countries.
“With high levels of youth unemployment, rising inequality and a pressing need to boost growth in many countries, it’s more urgent than ever that young people learn the skills they need to succeed,” said OECD Secretary-General Angel Gurría during the launch in Washington D.C. “In a global economy, competitiveness and future job prospects will depend on what people can do with what they know. Young people are the future, so every country must do everything it can to improve its education system and the prospects of future generations.”
http://www.oecd.org/newsroom/asian-countries-top-oecd-s-latest-pisa-survey-on-state-of-global-education.htm
Education anywhere in the world makes life of student -school going children with may help to make the moral of old life with his culture & code of discipline.
When the back ground of education system as so much noble end while a system has not placed necessary virtue ,culture ,& such other requirement of the society so that we all may see our world the beautiful to place to live .
This has not been achieved due to the fact that their has not been a harmony among the individual of any group or caste or even so to say a religion . This has remained one way a continue process at different intervals & in any part of place & the countries where in the WORLD.
In such situation social workers ,political leaders & sometime the government may try to intervene in such situation & some times it becomes a political capital out of it .What ever be the result of the above line ,you have to admit that God cannot afford to close the eyes for all the time to come .We all have witnessed also.
In this we can only say that every Black Crow has a silver lining
Dear Dr.Miranda ,
This article reviews the three setbacks experienced by the Education in Iraq:
The first was during the 1958 revolution where the government considering all the students are successful without them examinations. The second was during the 1991 Gulf War. And the third was after the occupation of Iraq in 2003.
Best Regards
Dear All,
Everybody knows that politics and religious extremism highly and unfortunately negatively can influence education. Demetris mentioned bombing by some (also pseudo) countries. This is but a simplification. Because last year without foreign interventions many schoolchildren and students were killed by religious extremists. These people want to hamper education mainly the women’s education in the name of who?
Dear All,
Dejenie wrote that the main cause may be the lack of vision. I would say the trouble may be to have sometimes bad or egoistic (personnel) visions and these unfortunate visions are supported by the corruption and the lack of democracy as well as lack of facilities/resources.
Dear Dr. Ali,
Formal Education has always been the bottle neck in the world politics where the warfare became the most powerful branch of the economic system, but although human beings have still been the most dangerous mammals in the earth, the species are able to make specific surprises, despite the country where the individuals are born, studied or came from. About 300 hundred years ago, a European mathematician was developing some specific formula about a specific issue and during the mathematic deduction he left a lag with a note saying about the meaning in that segment in the equation. During all this time, world mathematician tried unsuccessfully to solve the unfinished equation. Along the years, there was a prize to who could solve the problem. Years ago, a boy refugee studying the elementary degree in a Sweden school had contact with the problem. Suddenly, he wrote the figures that was lacking in the equation and show the results to the teacher. Surprised, the teacher had to go the University for an opinion (Lund, I guess now). After a mathematic panel discussing about the responses, the answer was, of course, right. This narrative was broadcasting by the Sweden Radio International, and I had the mp3 copy somewhere in my six external HD. The above narrative is important because human beings has been imprisoned in social system usually conducted by formal schools and many times the majority of them do not has the capacity of see around their confinement reduced to extremes. I live in country with thousand of English Schools, but with a population of students unable to read, write and impossible to maintain a conversation. In fact, an immense structure was set up to teach English for tourists. Behind this, only a political decision, which I was a spectator-participant 40 years ago. Latin was eliminate from our curriculum despite the courses in English available in the Internet was set up to teach English for native speakers. I said about English because this language has thousand of words derived from the Latin, because Rome had important influence in the Islands during the Empire period. In Portuguese, we have thousand of Arabic original words because of the 800 years of domination of the Iberian Peninsula by the Moro Empire. The only way out is to give chance for all members of the population. Based on reportage from YouTube, because the previous colonialism, the mathematic teach in France is similar to the math teach in Timbuktu, North Africa that was a New York about 1100 when the local Universities teaches law, religion, math and literature. In Brazil, we have the best soccer players of the world. The reason is that all teenagers, rich or poor, have the same chance of play football. We have most of the best car race of world, because rich people have the same opportunities in any country of world. In short, the great impediment to achieve a peaceful world is the deficit of opportunities to most of earth population.
I hope these words can help people
Best regards
Walter
As a citizen of those third world countries, I would state that culture and corruption is the main key of this thorny problem. Only the people, particularly highly educated, of those countries are responsible for solving this issue. Most appreciated Mr Al-Mosawi for rising up this crucial issue.
Dear All,
I think we are responsible for tolerating even allowing despots and forces of destruction to destroy our earthy world. Main causes may be our fear and that we have no self-confidence and are not able to unite our little power against the evil.
This is a very complicated question, and one that cannot easily be answered with simple responses. Nevertheless, these sorts of issues are deeply rooted in histories of domination by other nations and by, religious, political leadership, and cultural bases. A good case study might be the situation of the West Indian islands that were dominated by the British.
After these island gained independence from Britain, some islands fared batter than others. One West Indian country in particular (i.e. the Islands of Trinidad and Tobago, considered one country) gained its independence from Britain in 1962 and is unique among these islands for having risen from undeveloped 3rd world status under the British to 2nd world status in less than 50 years, and is on track to achieving 1st world status by 2020. How was this possible? This is where leadership, religion, politics, and culture come into play.
This democratic island is called the America of the Caribbean for a reason. It was fortunate enough to be guided by the late Dr. Eric E. Williams (1911 - 1981) who governed through democratic elections from the time of the British departure til his death in 1981. Dr. Williams was a visionary who put the country's needs above personal lust for power, and made education a top priority. Trinidad and Tobago is made up of predominantly peoples of African descent and East Indian (from India) descent, and is very diverse culturally. Before Williams, educating females was not a priority for most families; today, males and females have equal and easy access to free education up to the Bachelor degree.
The major religious denominations, Christians, Hindus, and Muslims co-exist in harmony, and there is great respect for cultural and religious differences. This was bred into the DNA of the islanders by Dr. Williams who sought to bring the island together after British rule, which sought to control its global possessions by dividing to conquer.
From Dr. Williams to present day, the tradition of respect for human rights, respect for cultural and religious differences, and a laser focus on education propelled the country forward. Under the British, education was limited; today, Trinidad offers its inhabitants free education up to the Bachelor level, and its standard of education is higher than that of the US! Literacy rates of Trinidadian males and females 15 years and older is an impressive 99.6% (http://www.unicef.org/infobycountry/trinidad_tobago_statistics.html).
The country is not free from the ills that plague developed countries, however, it stands as a testament for what progressive thinking, good leadership, respect for cultural and religious diversity - and an investment into educating its citizens - can achieve . In a visit to Trinidad in the 198s, the Pope of that era said that the world can learn something about harmonious living from Trinidad and Tobago. Of course, there are always those who would try to use race, religion, and cultural diversity as tools of division and hate; therefore, ultimately, the leadership in a country influences the direction of any country, as it does with any organization. Trinidad and Tobago have lived up to the words of its national anthem, shared below:
Words and music by Patrick Castagne (1916-2000).[2]
"Forged from the love of liberty
In the fires of hope and prayer
With boundless faith in our destiny
We solemnly declare:
Side by side we stand
Islands of the blue Caribbean sea,
This our native land
We pledge our lives to thee.
Here every creed and race find an equal place,
And may God bless our nation
Here every creed and race find an equal place,
And may God bless our nation."
Education destruction in third world countries might due to the following possible reasons:
1) War - whether is civil car or war with external countries, this will bring destruction of educational facilities, students fear to go to schools, universities etc
2) Lack of Budget / Financial Support from Authority - inadequate financial support will render the setting up / upgrade of educational & research facilities in schools & universities become impossible, hence quality of education & research suffers deterioration.
3) Schools or Universities' Mismanagement - due to incompetency or lack of integrity of some schools or universities management, funds provided were not being used optimally or misappropriation of public funds do happen.
4) Lack of Research Culture from University Management - causing lack of new / knowledge contribution or intellectual properties creation, deteriorating of university ranking etc.
5) Due to some of the above reasons, more & more parents decided to send their children to overseas / developed countries for better education - indirectly this will also destroy the education in home country.
6) "Hijacking" of Local Country's Talents by Oversea Countries / Universities - oversea countries / universities that offer scholarship, guaranteed job upon graduation, citizenship etc to talented local students will cause "brain drain" in which lack of talented students might pull down the overall students' study performance or educational system within the local country.
In my opinion, i dont think people can do anything to change the school curriculum or MOE policy . The root of destruction of education started with implementation of wrong policy and Outdated curriculum . A school can be no better than its curriculum allows it to be . The government is at fault because they know that when an individual is well educated ,he/she will be able to understand his/her basic right as a citizen of the nation . When people discover their right as a citizen of a nation ,they will start to ask questions and these are questions that the government , policy maker or so called politicians are not ready to answer .
The government have to choose away of not giving quality and quantity education to the people at the grassroots level nationwide by implementing poor education curriculum ,so that the standard of education in the country will have poor standard ,they the politicians and the elite in the society can send their own children abroad to get quality education and then ,come back to take over offices from their parents when they retired and its a continuous system of failed education system with huge corruption and abuse of power while in office .
Different countries around the globe with different scenario in education problem ,no need to start mentioning names of countries . As far as am concern , the government is responsible for whatever the schools produce into the society every year because that is the result of what they have design the curriculum to teach .
Education is the dorsal spin of a society, education provides as well as professionals, intellectuals, artists, scholars, researchers, ...etc ...and civilized citizens. When education system meets the norms of quality, professionals in any field of science and engineering, management, business, technical, teaching, manufacturing, economic, politics etc...etc.. are efficient in their jobs and duties. Citizen are more conscious of their well being, future trend, and more cognitive in their choices and works. So when different segments of the society are managed following the recognized standards, any independent society (ie free from wars or colonialism) could raise to development in spite of its history. If education is worst or not close to standards, all the society will be affected by weakness, incompetency, corruption and vice. Some countries were able to jump from poor and non developed to near developed and may be competitive ones in a small period of their history when their educative system was the dorsal spin of their governance. in the same time others following the same period of time, richer from natural resources i.e from incomes, are incompetent, corrupted, and some of them are in a chaotic state from governance to the extent they were able to drive their society to a dislocated pattern.
You are welcome dear Ali, in fact educative system couldn't be summarized only on the number of schools and universities per inhabitants, the availability of infrastructures (public or privates) should be an evidence and their insufficiency should be filled up. The educative system should be mostly focused on its competitive quality from programs, teaching, and human resources, the factor human resources and pedagogy culture is the key factor of its liability as it influences the future trend of the hole society.
Let us make a small arithmetic and take a society who begins with zero education which is a rare case:
- 10 years from primary school and college ( 6 +4 or 3 years) are able to give alphabetization and general education from different fields to people, and provide to market job first categories of employees from who do not want or are not able to rise to high school or lyceum. Those could follow professional programs as artisans, technical , or apprentice and be able to join the working market.
- 13 years from primary school to baccalaureate are able to make more knowledgeable people who are able to join universities or follow technicians jobs for who are not able to or do not want join higher education
- Then 16 years to make bachelors as first higher education degree who should be followed with professional specialization, 18 to 20 years to make engineers, lawyers, physicians, administrators, academics, teachers, etc... etc..And more to make Phds. So any society who follows quality programs could be able to build in 20 years her hierarchical dorsal spin and be able to make her elite. Starting from that, each year a generation of new diplomas could join job market or universities.
In 50 years a society with 20 years of education and training from higher degrees to apprentices + 30 years of working experiences, should be able to make sufficient expertise in different fields from research, engineering, teaching, management, economic, administration, academics, politics, laws, industry, enterprises, anesthetic, art ...etc..etc... and should be able to build a certain 'savoir faire' in each ....from artisans.... to scientists, each in his job.
In 50 years it should be inadmissible that administrations, politics, economics or else could work or be managed with people with no university degrees, bad or false ones. As it could sound as criminal that the expertise gained with hard work and sacrifice could be lost with people not sufficiently knowledgeable and experienced.
Same for politics which is the entity who should run and make strategies for the development of the society, This entity should be managed with people with higher education degrees and sufficient professional expertise from their past works and jobs; ie a society should be run by the merit of its elite
So no one is able to destruct education than the ones who haven't sufficient education and are runner of their societies or are their power ships
I believe the responsibility falls on all actors, both foreign and domestic, who contributed to making the countries third-world countries and to destroying the previous educational systems.
Rampant greed for money is eternal, even if it''s dealing with children, old people and invalids.
I think several factors have contributed in this great problems. Some factors depends on the country managers. Others factors came from abroad. The question is very difficult to answer because education, in my opinion, is very difficult task, goals, efficiency, and so on.
With my best wishes!
Dr. Adel OUESLATI
I beilive that people has father-responsability for the destruction of education in arabic countries.
When we lean German experience in everything (education, economy, everydaylife....), we conclude that good people = good education, and bad..., bad... Humain bahaviour is lever of any strategy.
Garmany was destroyed by NATO after the second war, but now they are the leader of europe and the first chalenger for USA and China.
Mothers in Germany is also a lesson to lean from and if you visit germany you will beleive that they are practicing ISLAM rules, even they are non-Muslim.
one other factor is the new policy in the world for colonalization and handling some countryies. Iraq is good exemple (destruction of country based on the new conolization in the new Wold policy and Algeria is also good exemple for destorying eduction, by local harkis, to hand true people.
Regards...
Dear Ali
With all humility I can tell you that, this sector has special attention in my country, there is political will and a lot of resources are dedicated to it
But without a doubt the global problem of education is the lack of investment in human and material resources.
It is perceived that education is an expense, instead of assuming it as an investment.
To E.Hemingway, "You are not moron. You're only a case of arrested development"
hi. education is not just a matter of instruction but as a matter of fact an issue of power and dominance in third world countries. a group of elites controlling all aspects of education, managerial and administrative facet, educational and teacher employment and education problems, teaching and learning policies and plans can have detrimental effects on education. education is in line with their desires and wants , not the real needs of society. the most knowledgeable and professional teachers are not respected. nepotism is governing the educators and teachers employment and promotion. that is the saddest story in these countries with a lot of brain drain. best
The main cause for the great harm done to education is corrupted governments. They are responsible for running the system of education in their countries. Iraq, for example, used to have one of the best systems of education in the middle east during the 1970s. Currently it is at the bottom of the list in the world university ranking.
Greedy and corrupt governments who fail to invest in education.
Selfish instructors who think about their bellies and fail to give the right coaching and tuition to learners.
Irresponsible parents and guardians who undermine the relevance of education
Lazy students who always want the easiest but sorry path of climbing the academic ladder with good grades which they don't deserve
I'm so disturbed when I think of these giant problems confronting the educational standards in Third World countries especially.
Political Leaders as well as bureaucrats,
Unless you do some politics, its not easy for your to entry in the education related job, and they continue their politics...
cruption at all levels
when a person gets salary without teaching at the goverment level , by paying 10 % of his salary to the high up how can education improve
this is not a problem in education
it is a problem in health sector social services also
a doctor runs it private clinic during govt duty hours
how the things can improve
It's part of corrupted system. started at the peak and ends at the bottom of administration pyramid.
I totally agree with Reinaldo that the education is investment rather than expense, and the should be the official point of view.
https://www.researchgate.net/post/Why_the_quality_of_education_is_quite_poor_in_developing_countries_and_who_is_responsible_for_this
This is a long thread, but valuable to discuss anew. I think it is a very complex question which nieeds complex answers. But as far as I know it should be possible to use or to develop computer programs which can show after the input of all relevant variables, where the deciding factors are. Of course the analyze of the past - let us consider the caculation is primately correct - is not an advice what to do. But we can learn by comparising analyzing which countries in which time has the risk to be in danger.
The current climate considers "authoritarianism" which is often the simple and legitimate exercise of authority. The teacher is harmed, his job too. After all, he fears for his job. He also fears being challenged: if his already limited authority is violated at every instant, all that he does loses his meaning. The so-called problem of lack of resources is secondary: my studies were in public schools, decades ago, when Brazil allocated far fewer resources in Public Education.
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