ABSTRACT
Factors including accelerating scientific and technological development, the internationization of the means of production, and the division of labor, of knowledge and of education have led almost all the countries of the world, developing and developed, to examine their systems of education in general and higher education in particular to ascertain whether they are meeting the challenges of the time. Higher education today is required to serve society: the best way it can do so is to prepare people capable of tackling the emerging problems that beset their particular society. These problems are moral and ethical on the one hand and materialistic on the other, related to the basic necessities of life. namely food and nutrition, health and sanitation, housing and shelter. These basic needs can only be satisfied through economic activity, and higher education is required to provide the necessary skills in order that these basic needs can be supplied. In a static, subsistence economy, education may limit its concerns to mind and character: in an information, industrial. and commercial economy, however, it has to cater to "matter" as well. Clearly, higher education today cannot justify its existence by providing only academic learning for mental or spiritual development: it has to provide the necessary skills for economic development in addition to cultural and social development. in order that natural resources may be explored and exploited, products stored and dis-tributed, services managed, and resources conserved for future generations. Such skills would not only enable solutions for present problems to be found but also prepare young people to work on the unpredictable, complex, and dynamic problems of the future.
