1. Well I am not sure how to start this, I cannot say that I am upset, and I cannot say that I am indifferent. I
have to tell you what exactly went through my mind when I read this little article on gulfnews campus
notes yesterday.
I have been working in the field of education since 2003, and before that people would enquire with me
since I have been an international student almost all my life about universities and what not; the same
comments arise, is this a ranked university? Is it high quality? What’s the employment rate for its
graduates? Is the country safe? Are the people nice? etcetc
So I had assumed that the people are so wary about these facts, and built our small business around
it. Then the mushrooming of the universities in UAE and the rest of the gulf happened. It was a real
phenomena, the various ones that had sprung up in a 4 bedroom apartments, with two shelves of books
and teachers that shake their heads when they speak, who have no previous teaching experience, I can
go on and on, but I will stop here. However despite all of this the people who had previously questioned
me on why I am choosing a particular university for their son or daughter, they themselves placed
him/her in these joints. Of course the ultimate happened and some found out that they cannot go to
master’s programme, some found out that they cannot practice medicine, some are working as
hospitality employees rather than dentists; some were stranded as the university closed down and
packed up and gone. There is no ranking system, and to top it all up, find out if any of these local
universities are in any international list? I dont think so either. The gulf, and the Middle East do not
feature, and if we talk about research, what we have in all of these countries put together may not even
represent 1% of one single small university in the world. Also branches of international universities
lower their acceptance criteria and their high standards when they open in the Gulf, whether it being in
research or in quality of teachers, or in number of books available to the students in the library. I
worked in one of these international universities, and the students would fight over a single book per
subject that is placed in the library, even us the teachers didn’t have our own set, in one of the subjects I
had to ring the main campus to send me a photocopy of what they have, and in turn I photocopied the
book to the students. Well don’t ask about the local support services either, for example in the smallest
university overseas you will find a book shop, a clinic, gardens, gym, many cafe's and restaurants, over
here these are scarce. The university doesn’t want to make it easy on the students, nor it want to
encourage local businesses to open on its campuses.
My question here is why didn’t the parents ask the same questions to the local universities? Did they
assume that a higher authority is going to look after these facts? I personally will not depend on a higher
authority for this, unless of course I witnessed a track record? For example there are conflicting bodies,
one that provides the assurance, and one that provides the attestation, so the latter will not attest it, as
the assurance did not qualify with its standards. What do we do? I have no idea. But, having said that I
think all of us the educators have the responsibility to speak up, and tell everybody to be careful, to
evaluate, to compare and to think of 4 years down the lane when their kids graduate.
I am not sure if I will be heard, I dont really care, but my voice will have to be heard one day.

2. To be considered for the overall #THES World University Rankings, institutions must:
Produce a minimum of 200 #publications per year (articles, notes, reviews), on average over a five
year period
Have #undergraduate and #doctoral students (so should not be a graduate-only school)
Not be a single subject school such as a medical or business school (though exceptions are made in
certain cases where an institution may be included in the THE Subject Ranking)
However, as the database deepens, and more regional, or subject-level or specialist analyses
become possible, so institutions with different profiles can be included on a discretionary
basis.@educationzone#ranking #MENA
Reseach