The State of Higher Education in Syria Pre-2011 CARA UNIVERSITY OF CAMBRIDGE a lifeline to academics at risk since 1933 Faculty of Education Cara (the Council for At-Risk Academics) was set The Education Reform and Innovation (ERI) team up in 1933 by academics and scientists in the consists of academic researchers and teaching UK as a rescue mission in response to the Nazi prastitioners based at the University of Cambridge regime’s decision to expel many of Germany’s Faculty of Education. The team specialises in leading academics from their posts, on racial and research-informed systemic education reform that political grounds. Cara’s founders defined their consists of development, research, monitoring and task as “the relief of suffering and the defence evaluation. ERI has established itself by harnessing of learning and science”; and between 1933 and practical field experience alongside research, 1939 they helped some 2000 people to safety, with monitoring and evaluation. As the University their families. Many of those helped then went on of Cambridge has established its research and to achieve great things, including winning sixteen development- internationally, ERI has found the Nobel Prizes; their skills and knowledge helped to opportunity to apply its own knowledge and skills to transform many areas of intellectual life in the UK. assist institutions in reshaping education provision. Eighty-five years on Cara is a global leader in its www.educ.cam.ac.uk field; working to help academics from all around the world who fear for their freedom, their safety, even their lives. It enjoys the strong support of some 120 universities in the UK and a growing number abroad, who are hosting ‘Cara Fellows’ - academics who have been forced into exile, with their families - until, as most of them hope, they can one day return home. In addition, Cara’s regional programmes provide innovative and effective support to academics who are working on in their country despite the risks, or who have been forced into exile nearby. The most recent, Cara’s Syria Programme, is so far the only international programme to focus on supporting and developing Syrian academics in exile in the region around Syria, with some 200 individuals likely to be engaged in Programme activities in 2019. www.cara.ngo BRITISH COUNCIL The British Council is the UK’s international organisation for cultural relations and educational opportunities. We create friendly knowledge and understanding between the people of the UK and other countries. We do this by making a positive contribution to the UK and the countries we work with – changing lives by creating opportunities, building connections and engendering trust. We work with over 100 countries across the world in the fields of arts and culture, English language, education and civil society. Last year we reached over 65 million people directly and 731 million people overall including online, broadcasts and publications. Founded in 1934, we are a UK charity governed by Royal Charter and a UK public body. www.britishcouncil.org www.britishcouncil.org/research-policy-insight The State of Higher Education in Syria Pre-2011 | Page 02 Foreword The British Council and the Council for At-Risk Academics (Cara) are very pleased to have collaborated on commissioning this report on the state of higher education in Syria up to the outbreak of war. Both of our organisations are committed to working with scholars affected or displaced by conflict. Nowhere has the impact of war on universities, their staff and their students been more profound than in Syria, an impact that has spilled over into surrounding countries and has affected multiple cohorts of potential students in Syria, its neighbourhood and beyond. The British Council and Cara are also committed to assisting academics and students affected by conflict not only during times of war but also in its aftermath. This includes protecting and advancing scholarship for the duration of hostilities as well as making efforts to reconstruct higher education systems as soon as conditions allow. The current study is designed to provide an essential baseline understanding for those engaged in work on the reconstruction and rehabilitation of the Syrian higher education system in future. Moreover, the wide availability of such a report is vital in helping Syrian academics involved in this process to inform their international partners in such efforts. We are very grateful to the authors of the report for this meticulous and sensitive study. Cara had drawn on the same team of experts to produce a separate report on the post-2011 situation in Syrian higher education. The work was carried out by Syrian scholars in exile, in collaboration with colleagues in the UK led by Professor Colleen McLaughlin at the School of Education, Cambridge. This collaboration is typical of the work undertaken by the Cara Syria Programme, which involves the building of international teams and networks and extending state-of-the-art research techniques to Syrian researchers. The British Council has been undertaking and commissioning research both on its own and together with partners such as UNHCR and Cara, to understand both the impact of conflict and of displacement on young people of tertiary education age, and their challenges and aspirations for the future, as well as the opportunities they have been able to access and harness under trying conditions. Together we hope these studies and their associated activities will contribute to the future efforts of many of these young people in reconstructing their country when the war is over. It will also be Syrian academics themselves, wherever they are currently in exile, who will lead the way in training new teachers, doctors, engineers and other professionals necessary to rebuild the country. They will lead in setting the standards necessary to help Syria back towards its place in the international community. We are humbled by the commitment of Syrian scholars and the aspirations of the generations of potential students and scholars who have been impacted by this protracted conflict. We hope that our contribution through this research will be to play some small part towards forging a more promising future for Syria, its higher education system, its scholars and all its citizens. Professor Jo Beall Anne Lonsdale CBE Director Cultural Engagement Chair (Executive Board) Council for At-Risk Academics British Council The State of Higher Education in Syria Pre-2011 | Page 03 Contributors UNIVERSITY OF CAMBRIDGE EDITORIAL ASSISTANCE FACULTY OF EDUCATION TEAM Mary Jane Drummond Jo-Anne Dillabough LIBRARY RESEARCH ASSISTANCE Olena Fimyar Colleen McLaughlin Maria Khwaja Zeina Al Azmeh ADMINISTRATIVE ASSISTANCE Mona Jebril Yasmine Victoria Rix SYRIAN CO-RESEARCHERS Christoph Hartwig Abdulhafez Abdulhafez Lynn Phillips Shaher Abdullateef Musallam Abedtalas Samir Alabdullah Ziad Alibrahim Ammar Almohamad Alibrahim Wissam Aloklah Taiseer Barmu Hamoud Haj Hamoud Bakry Kadan Adnan Rashid Mamo Fateh Shaban The State of Higher Education in Syria Pre-2011 | Page 04 Contents CONTRIBUTING AUTHORS 04 EXECUTIVE SUMMARY 07 SECTION 1: INTRODUCTION 10 SECTION 2: CAPACITY BUILDING AS A RESEARCH METHODOLOGY 16 SECTION 3: SYRIAN HIGHER EDUCATION PRE-2011 – THE FINDINGS 23 Part 1: Reform, mission and governance 25 Part 2: Teaching and research 37 Part 3: Student admission and progression 49 The State of Higher Education in Syria Pre-2011 | Page 05 Contents REFERENCES 60 • APPENDIX A: Capacity building as a research methodology 66 • APPENDIX B: University and non-university affiliated research centres and institutes 71 • APPENDIX C: Examples of timelines constructed in the first workshop 73 • APPENDIX D: Interview schedule for university staff 75 • APPENDIX E: Interview schedule for university students 77 • APPENDIX F: Arabic-language policy documents reviewed by the Syrian research team 79 LIST OF TABLES • Table 1.1: A key to the map of higher education institutions in Syria 1910–2011 12 • Table 2.1 Methods used 19 • Table 2.2: Number of staff and students in Syria by university type (public/private) and gender 19 • Table 2.3: Number of staff and students in Syria by area (regime-controlled /non-regime-controlled) and gender 19 • Table 2.4: Total number of interviewees inside and outside Syria by gender and university 19 • Table 3.1: Higher education enrolments by institution type in 2009–10 53 • Table 3.2: Postgraduate student numbers in public universities in Syria in 2011–12 53 • Table 3.3: Decisions and decrees linked to widening access arrangements 56 LIST OF FIGURES • Figure 1.1: A map of higher education institutions in Syria 1910–2011 11 • Figure 1.2: Key events in the development of higher education in Syria 1903–2011 13 • Graph 2.1: Number of staff by discipline who replied to questions regarding the state of higher education pre-2011 20 • Graph 2.2: Number of students by discipline who replied to questions regarding the state of higher education pre-2011 21 LIST OF VIGNETTES • Vignette 3.1: The introduction of digital technologies into higher education 25 • Vignette 3.2: University centres for quality assurance and accreditation 33 • Vignette 3.3: Political cultures, Syrian higher education and student representation 35 • Vignette 3.4: Teaching and communication style 43 • Vignette 3.5: The Syrian Virtual University 46 • Vignette 3.6: ‘Education was very poor in the villages’ 52 • Vignette 3.7: Task structure promoted in the workshop 68 The State of Higher Education in Syria Pre-2011 | Page 06 Executive Summary Executive Summary This summary is based on the findings reported in Section 3 and the themes discussed therein. The report is an outcome of a collaborative enquiry undertaken by the University of Cambridge Faculty of Education team, and Syrian co-researchers who previously worked in Syrian universities and are currently displaced to Turkey. Interviews about the state and conditions of Syrian HE before 2011 were carried out with 19 Syrian academics living in exile in Turkey and 48 university staff and students still working or studying inside Syria, the latter carried out remotely by the Syrian co-researchers.