Al - Anbat - Shatha Hatamleh 

 Translated by - Neveen - Al - Jarrah 

Educational experts criticized the government's plan to merge the Ministries of Education and Higher Education under the umbrella of one ministry concerned with education affairs, starting from the kindergarten stage and ending with universities, in line with the visions of economic modernization and the plan to modernize the public sector.

The former Minister of Education, Dr. Ibrahim Badran, confirmed that the merger of the two ministries has no benefit and does not add anything to them, wondering whether the merger will achieve added value to education and help improve basic education and higher education and improve the educational environment in schools and universities?

He also wondered whether integration would help develop the potential of the teacher in school and university?, direct students to advanced technical and technological learning?, and increase the research carried out by faculty members?, and would it help solve economic, social and technical problems facing society?.

Badran called for focusing on the quality of basic and university education, identifying the problems facing it, setting up a system to provide solutions, addressing the financing problem facing universities and scientific research, and the participation of universities in solving community problems such as water, desertification, energy and agriculture issues, focusing on the financial and administrative independence of universities.

For his part, the former director of the National Center, Dr. Mahmoud Al Massad, said that it has been the practice for several years to target educational concepts that link the learner to the course of his life, within the framework of the desirable values ​​of the society in which he lives and interacts with him. With the aim of success and peace of mind.

He added that this targeting leaves the learner with memorizing information and facts available from global sources of knowledge, and deprives him of the contents of positive communication with others affected by a national heart and conscience belonging to the nation and the group on the one hand, and meeting with a common trunk with the world with positive universal values ​​on the other hand.

He continued that the merger process is a suspicious process, as education is an integrated system in which all its components interact, in harmony and consistency that improves the effectiveness of the system, explaining that the integration of general education that mixes education with a very precise balance in which concepts, skills and educational trends increase in the first grades, and specialized education increases in the upper grades , with specialized higher education, and makes this mixture a work unrelated to education.

And Massad indicated that merging the Ministry of Education with higher education focuses, as is evident from the name of the new ministry, on structures, transfers, and human resources that appeal to lovers of administration that are empty of the contents of education, values, and skills that support the prosperity of the state, wondering: How can lovers mix things up by merging two different cultures in more than one direction? For human resources in the state? The culture of the Ministry of Education is modest, conservative, deprived and exhausted by a culture of higher education that is more liberal, luxurious and arrogant.

He wondered: Will we raise the cadres of the Ministry of Education to the level of cadres in higher education? Or will the cadres of higher education be reduced to exhausted people in public education? Expecting the second because it is the closest to implementation.

He pointed out that the merger of the two ministries will have one minister from higher education who does not wish to know anything about public education, noting that this is one of the main goals that were prepared for years ago.

In his turn, the educational expert, Dr. Thouqan Obeidat, stated that the development of education is not linked to the existence of one or two institutions or the merging of two ministries with each other, but rather development that requires organized steps, adding that the justifications provided by the government for merging the two ministries were devoid of the development of education, and all of them are financial justifications.

He added that there are many problems that will result from the merger of the two ministries, including that the Ministry of Education and its curricula are subject to severe societal control, so freedom in the Ministry of Education is very few, and it only believes in one opinion, which is the opinion of society, while universities have academic freedom that allows for research, discussion and a multiplicity of opinions, indicating that the merger of the two ministries Universities will be subject to societal control and will amend the freedom in universities.

He continued that there is a difference in culture between the two ministries, as the Ministry of Education has a specific culture, which is the culture of the province, while the culture of the university includes movement and continuous development, wondering: Is it possible for the two cultures to continue in one ministry with the diversity of the two cultures? The university culture is modern and linked to the world more than the local community.

He stressed that the size of the Ministry of Education is twice the size of the Ministry of Higher Education, especially since universities may become independent from the ministry, pointing out that the Ministry of Higher Education will decrease its importance by merging it with the Ministry of Education.