New higher education initiatives promote “information literacy” [Archives:2008/1118/Local News]
Aziz Al-Hadi
For The Yemen Times
SANA'A, Jan. 1 ) In July of last year in the city of Mukalla, the Higher Education Ministry, in partnership with Yemen's public universities, announced the formal inauguration of the Yemen Center for Information Technology in a signed declaration released to the press.
Although perhaps many hardly noticed the declaration, discussions with Ministry officials associated with the “push to lift Yemen's higher education into cyberspace” led to the conclusion that if successful, this complicated multi-phase program could prove to be the ministry's crowning development this decade.
The new center's new board held its first meeting in December chaired by Higher Education Minister Saleh Basurra. Board members primarily are Yemeni university rectors, in addition to a member of the Telecommunications Ministry and a member of the Chamber of Commerce.
According to Deputy Higher Education Minister and Deputy Board Chairman Mohammed Al-Mutaher, the center will provide the ability to oversee the design, development, training and maintenance of the Higher Education Ministry's networked system of ICT (information and communications technologies) services and support in order to continually benefit Yemen's estimated 200,000 faculty, staff and students.
Completed in 2005, the ICT Master Plan for Higher Education was funded by a Dutch government fund established to support institutional strengthening in education and training and was developed by Yemeni and Dutch experts led by specialists from the Netherlands' Delft University of Technology (also known as TU Delft).
The Yemeni government approved plan outlines a seven-phase program of ICT development projects to be implemented under the new IT center's direct supervision. The project's total estimated cost supposedly is just under $25 million over the next four to five years.
Lu'ay Al-Kibsi, Yemen's coordinator of ICT higher education projects, explains that in its first years, the center will focus on development, including developing the IT infrastructure, management information services, e-libraries, e-learning and university communications, as well as providing high-speed web access and training.
He says that implementing the plan will play a leading role in the effort to modernize Yemen's higher education system by providing the physical capability, structure, resources and support services needed to effectively integrate information technology into teaching and learning here.
In his opening statement, the minister Al-Mutaher praised this developing partnership with donors as well as the Yemeni government's support for the initiative thus far.
Other support includes both the initial and expanded support by the Dutch government through the Netherlands Organization for International Cooperation in Higher Education, or NUFFIC, at $5.5 million, the IDA/World Bank Higher Education Project at $2 million and the Chinese government at $4 million, in addition to the Yemeni government, which has allocated $4 million for the project.
Al-Mutaher further stressed to the board the need for further funding, calling on more donor, government and private sector support for this crucial need.
He noted other information-related projects currently being implemented or in the tender phase, including pilot technical assistance programs regarding e-library and library development and developing a comprehensive e-management information system, among others, all seeking to reduce the current low level of what he terms “information literacy.”
Additionally, a new World Bank-funded program is seeking to expand the higher education university's internal capacity to train its own staff via a program to strengthen in-house English language teaching centers, teaching and research and IT training for staff development.
Al-Mutaher further noted that a constant theme running throughout the objectives of the National Development Strategy for Higher Education is the need to rapidly expand the availability of IT resources and skills at all levels in Yemeni universities.
He affirmed that the university's leadership recognizes that developing Yemeni graduates capable of contributing to the national economy not only requires easy access to information, but also the skills in how “to utilize and integrate information into teaching and learning by students and faculty alike.”
Likewise, Bert Geers, chief technical expert and international manager of the TU Delft/Higher Education Ministry project in Yemen, emphasized the need to focus on establishing the underlying IT infrastructure in Yemeni universities. According to Geers, thousands more computers are needed for such a system, with the ministry setting a target of 4,000 total computers over the next four years.
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