Cherine Sabry has recently graduated from the GLOBED (Global Education Policies for Development) Masters programme, jointly offered by the Universitat Autónoma de Barcelona (Spain), Universität Bremen (Germany) and the University of Cyprus. She has written her thesis (2nd supervisor Kerstin Martens of CRC 1342 project A05) on regional education organisations in the Arab world, focusing on the case of the Arab League Educational, Cultural and Scientific Organization (ALECSO).
She presents her findings today at the 2021 Virtual Symposium on Advancing Education in Muslim Societies (AEMS). She reveals new insights regarding the role that regional organisations play in the design of education policy in the Arab and Muslim world, and how these policies are shaped by the interaction between regional and global IOs. Using a post-colonial framework for the analysis, Sabry has analysed ALESCO’s publications and publications by its partner organisations. The data was complemented by interviews with current and former ALECSO staff.
In her analysis Sabry found that the ALECSO is unmoored between two trends that pull it in different directions – on the one hand ALECSO aims to counter Western hegemony in the region and to promote and preserve the Arab culture and language; on the other hand the undeniable dominance of certain global IOs influence ALECSO’s work, so that it emulates global IOs, e.g. in using global guidelines and criteria to measure educational quality. This inconsistent strategy, combined with the lack of qualified staff, Sabry found, leads to a decline of the role ALECSO is playing in shaping education policy in the Arab world.
You can download a video of Cherine Sabry’s presentation that has been recorded previously: Regional Education Organizations in the Arab World
Contact:
Prof. Dr. Kerstin Martens
CRC 1342: Global Dynamics of Social Policy, Institute for Intercultural and International Studies
Mary-Somerville-Straße 7
28359 Bremen
Phone: +49 421 218-67498
E-Mail: martensk@uni-bremen.de
