The other day while I was at the University of Jordan I learned a very interesting fact about the university. That fact is that the university, which is supposed to be the "best" university in the country has decided to change the way that grades are evaluated. It seems that too many of the students are getting bad grades and bad grade point averages such as 2.0, 2.3, 2.5 etc. Moreover, the university feels that job opportunities for graduating students has greatly declined in comparison with some of the private universities within the country. As a result, and in an effort to fix the situation, the university has decided to change the grade scale so that a 2.3 is now really really really high, as opposed to a 4.0. In my mind this doesn't really seem to solve the issue at hand, and demonstrates the way that Arabs tend to view problems.
In general it seems that when there is a problem in the Middle East, whether it is within society, the government, or some other organization, the largest hindrance to the problem is the fact that they don't actually focus on the real problem, rather they focus on the easiest solution, which is usually not related in any way and tends to focus on things that don't need fixing. The grades issue is just one of those examples. Other examples can be seen in the way Arabs ignore social issues, i.e. abuse, education, health, or in the way that the governments go about fixing their issues, i.e.: by releasing political prisoners, or making worthless changes to a constitution that has no influence on the government, or re-organizing the representatives of the people, when the king can simply ignore, remove, or veto any decisions or members that he feels like at a future time, (in most cases the representatives aren't even in power long enough to make a real lasting difference, thus keeping a status quo while holding up appearances of change). All in all, I feel that the biggest problem that Arabs face with their future is the relative smoke and shadows approach to all problems. This however, does seem to be changing and evolving more with the advent of the internet and social networks such as Twitter and Facebook which is helping to educate as well as provide a forum for political and social debate concerning major issues. Hopefully, with the rising generations, which will have lived through the Arab spring, we will see a change in approach to the problems, and an increased awareness with open dialogue approach to solving the issues in their country's.
In general it seems that when there is a problem in the Middle East, whether it is within society, the government, or some other organization, the largest hindrance to the problem is the fact that they don't actually focus on the real problem, rather they focus on the easiest solution, which is usually not related in any way and tends to focus on things that don't need fixing. The grades issue is just one of those examples. Other examples can be seen in the way Arabs ignore social issues, i.e. abuse, education, health, or in the way that the governments go about fixing their issues, i.e.: by releasing political prisoners, or making worthless changes to a constitution that has no influence on the government, or re-organizing the representatives of the people, when the king can simply ignore, remove, or veto any decisions or members that he feels like at a future time, (in most cases the representatives aren't even in power long enough to make a real lasting difference, thus keeping a status quo while holding up appearances of change). All in all, I feel that the biggest problem that Arabs face with their future is the relative smoke and shadows approach to all problems. This however, does seem to be changing and evolving more with the advent of the internet and social networks such as Twitter and Facebook which is helping to educate as well as provide a forum for political and social debate concerning major issues. Hopefully, with the rising generations, which will have lived through the Arab spring, we will see a change in approach to the problems, and an increased awareness with open dialogue approach to solving the issues in their country's.
Oh, I'm sorry I thought you were talking about the current US administration...my mistake.
ReplyDelete