Policy Borrowing in Higher Education The Case of Qatar

Disguise as globalization, neoliberalism reduces education to simply a service or product that can be bought and sold in the market to those who have the resources (Giroux, 2002). This commodification of the educational sector spawns the lucrative business of policy borrowing, importing educational policies and practices from one national context to another. There is little doubt that this higher education explosion enabled by educational borrowing has been financed by the regions’ oil and gas wealth with GCC countries often accused of simply relying on the “region-specific tradition to import ‘best practice’ (Khodr, 2011, p. More specifically regarding Qatar, Khodr, (2011) states that “the relative lack of financial constraints and the availability of state revenues have allowed for easily exporting ‘best practice’ from all around the world” (p.

For example, Qatar has borrowed a massive decentralized educational reform and has developed Education City that houses branch campuses of some of the world's universities. Embedded in globalization is a market ideology where education is deemed a tradable commodity that is bought and sold to those seeking to develop a knowledge economy (Devos, 2003). The globalization of educational policy has developed into a worldwide movement where worldwide seize opportunities to import educational theories, policies and practices in any attempt to improve their educational systems (Romanowski, Alkhateeb & Nasser, 2018). Worldwide transferring educational products from Western nations is viewed as a silver bullet guaranteeing solutions for educational, political and economic problems. These commodities are internationalized appearing to meet the needs of local and international purchasers (Ellili-Cherif, Romanowski, & Nasser, 2011).

More specifically and relevant for this paper is the relatively new but growing phenomenon of hosting of Western branch campuses by Gulf Cooperation Council Countries (GCC) “in their quest to reform their higher education programs in line with Western models of educations” (Bhuian, 2016, p. Under this view, transfers that are in many respects highly coercive, such as the structural adjustment policies of the International Monetary Fund and World Bank, are not truly ‘direct impositions’ given that the sovereignty of the adopter country is not overridden. Policy transfer analysts have emphasized the role of functional and economic interdependence as well as the emergence of international consensus as factors that induce rather than impose certain policy prescriptions through different modes of coercion. In critiquing the improbability of purely voluntary and directly imposed transfers, Dolowitz and Marsh (1996) have helped locate the intervening, messy zone of ‘indirect coercive transfers’—where the actions of policy agents are exposed to varying degrees and modes of coercion—as the center of gravity for policy transfer studies.

Stone (2012: 7) “criticised the rationalist underpinnings of early transfer approaches and instead stress[es] the complexity of context [and the need for] interpretation or experimentalism … in the assemblage of policy” (p. She refers to this work as a ‘nascent third generation’ of policy transfer research, after earlier policy diffusion (first generation) and traditional political science policy transfer approaches (second generation). Under this approach, policy circulation began to be explained less by emulative, mechanistic adoption of policy innovation and more by the differentiated way that policy-makers source, assimilate and apply knowledge. It was, in other words, much more concerned with agents and actions associated with policy circulation. Rose (1991: 9) explicitly fashioned his lesson-drawing approach as a reaction against policy diffusion studies, which he thought “often presuppose a kind of technocratic determinism”, where “the existence of common problems in many places will dictate a common response”.

By contrast, the practice of lesson-drawing was more voluntary and lesson-drawing centred the policy-maker as “a social engineer seeking knowledge instrumentally” (p. Lesson-drawing studies acknowledge that policy-makers operate under cognitive, institutional and political constraints, thwarting the possibility for truly rational decision-making. Thi Phan (2010) points out that originally, Qatar Foundation (QF) planned to bring one, multi-disciplinary research university to EC. Incapable of findings a suitable partner institution, QF leadership decided to invite top-tier higher education institutions that could provide programs that would meet Qatar’s most vital education needs. These institutions were selected based on their academic reputation of providing an internationally recognized curriculum and producing research in disciplines that are essential to developing Qatar’s higher education (Knight, 2011). Hence, EC utilizes a cluster model where several universities are housed under one umbrella organization, Qatar Foundation (Crist, 2011).

QF pays the costs for the IBCs “while, in principle, guaranteeing them academic freedom. Miller-Idriss and Hanauer (2011) suggest that “there have been historical patterns of ‘borrowing’ between universities – including the imitation and modelling of foreign university structures, curriculum, teaching practices, or other approaches – across national and continental borders” (p. Harding and Lammey (2011) suggest that faculty and staff from the home campus transfer to the IBC play a role in maintaining and achieving the same academic standards of the home campus and to ensure that other aspects of the home campus such as culture and standards are being transferred to the IBC. Vora (2014) move the discussion about what is transferred further by addressing underlying ideologies and perspectives being transferred. She writes, because IBCs are imagined and administered as extensions of their home campuses in the USA, Education City’s American universities are underpinned by Western liberal ideologies – namely multiculturalism, egalitarianism, secularism, democracy and liberal feminism – that do not always match up with Qatari understandings of national futures and traditional values (p.

Central to higher education is the issue of academic freedom. What is being borrowed? Teaching in a diverse learning environment is a complex undertaking due to variations in philosophy especially with regards to IBCs that operate in a foreign environment. Hughes (2011) expresses two concerns: the first one is the extent with which the learning approach should borrow from the local context. The second one is the issue of quality of teaching and maintenance of standards between the host country and the institution. There is need to consider adjustments in the curriculum and the pedagogy. There are situations where the IBC makes decisions on what adjustments should be done, while in other instances, the home campus has to weigh in on what changes need to be made.

This shows the education is not borrowing from the host country, but is instead conditioning the students to fit into the home campus curriculum. Ghabra and Arnold (2007) the host nation is required to change its attitude toward higher education with regards to the IBCs. The authors point out the need to put into consideration the local cultures, regulations and laws. Conceptual Model Educational systems are very complex involving a broad-spectrum of both participants and direct and indirect influences. Burdett and O’Donnell (2016) consider educational systems as sociopolitical systems. e. ambitions or enabling structures) (Phillips & Ochs, 2003). This stage addresses what motivated and considers the interest in the particular change. These could be political, economic, a nation’s internal dissatisfaction with current conditions or a negative external assessment for example like low PISA scores.

Decision or stage two is considered the “agreement to proceed with an emphasis upon implementation feasibility; it is recommended that transparency, credibility and experience guide this phase and it is also noted that if stakeholders feel comfortable then resistance is less likely” (McDonald, 2012, p. These include 'significant actors'-with the power to support or resist change and “resistance might take the form of delayed decision, or simply of non-decision” (Phillips & Ochs, 2004, p. The final stage Internalization/Indigenization ‘revolves around the observed impact of the introduced policy, how it is adapted and synthesized into existing practices, and outlines that a process of evaluation and assessment of the policy can be undertaken for further adjustments” (McDonald, 2012, p. This stage examines the impact of the policy in the new context looking back at the original motives determining compatibility (Phillips & Ochs, 2003).

This stage considers the potential effect on the target country, the compatibility of the borrowed policy and the similarities and differences between the home and target country. The essence is how the “new policy becomes part of the borrower system (Phillips, 2003, p. Several scholars point out this flaw of not acknowledging dissimilarities between developed and developing countries and English and non-English speaking nations (Steiner‐Khamsi, 2006; Tikly, 2001; Chow, 2014). Furthermore, Chow (2014) argues that “the model was not specifically built for a capitalist economy and, therefore, comparatists also need to be aware of the economic structure of the country they are studying, as this can greatly affect the aim of public education” (p. Despite these shortcomings, Phillips and Ochs’ four-stage model is a useful theoretical framework to investigate educational policy transfer and Qatar’s Education City Method This study uses the documentary review method to collect data for this paper.

Bailey (1994) posits that this method involved the analysis of documents containing data relevant to the research issue. This method is a form of qualitative research that utilizes documents to give voice and meaning to a particular phenomenon (Bowen, 2009). Although there were arguments on the need to adapt the local culture in the growing wester education in the gulf region, there was an emerging perspective that western education was superior and should just be adopted at it is to the local education system. Bakken (2013) investigated the integration of Western values among Qatari students that are increasingly embracing education in IBCs. Qatar has also invested billions of dollars in developing Western universities in the country; there is even a special designated area for the universities to open up branches (Krieger, 2008).

Stage Two: Decision The type of decision that were made by the Qatari government were motivated by the need to transform the hydrocarbon-based economy to a knowledge-based economy (Abduljawad, 2015). The home campuses are also motivated by the financial incentives and considerations accorded to them by the host countries (Wilkins & Huisman, 2012). Regarding resistance, it is important to recall that QF designed EC to provide students with an American education. Vora (2014) writes that Americans occupied key positions, and looked to the USA as a source of expertise for the growth of an indigenous knowledge economy, the project has heightened local concerns about too much Western influence, which might result in the loss of Arabic language, Muslim values and traditional Qatari social relations (p.

2244) There have been questions by the Qatari regime regarding the link between commercial partnerships and academic freedom and the protection of freedom of association. The western campuses have indicated that their presence in Qatar offers an opportunity to liberalize the state and society. However, question lingers as to whether western campuses are providing the starting point for the development of social and political reform in Qatar. Although the intension is towards liberalizing social and political life in the host country, there is evidence that presence of IBCs curtails the development of indigenous consciousness that is needed to achieve democratization. The only aspect of liberalization the new form of education has brought to Qatar is economic with no impact towards political and social reforms.

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