ABSTRACT
ABSTRACT: In the last two decades the Arab World has witnessed a meteoric expansion in higher education involving the establishment of tens of new universities and the matriculation of hundreds of thousands of new students. A number of unsolved major challenges have manifested in the context of this rapid period of growth entailing an assessment of:
1. The capacity, diversity and responsiveness to market demand, 2. The quality of education viewed through the prism of its compatibility with production and
labour markets, 3. The governance viewed through the prism of its management of higher educational institutions, 4. The economics of higher education, 5. The role of private universities and their relations with public universities, 6. The place of Arab universities on the quality scale of international universities, 7. The potential for development of a modern Arab higher education industry with productive
networking and co-operation programmes, 8. The role of Arab universities in the socio-economic development and progress of Arab countries.
