There
is nothing worse than being denied a farewell to a perishing relative on their
deathbed, let alone when the cause of death is medical negligence. Many in
Jordan would make a case that the oxygen crisis at “Al-Salt Hospital” last
March has — ironically — become a breath of hope for the reform of the public-health
sector; before the level of devastation hit new highs on the infamous “Blackout
Friday.”
اضافة اعلان
Notwithstanding
the dire need for change, Jordanians must refuse superficial reforms that do
not tackle root causes. Such groundless reforms will be disaster camouflaged.
A
closer look at the initial indictment list against the defendants in Al-Salt
Hospital reveals grave mistakes that do not relate to the medical field, but
more accurately, to the culture and education of those standing trial. The
experts’ testimony used by the prosecutor office to file charges clearly alludes
to the lack of skills in time management, meter reading assessments, demand and
supply estimation, emergency preparedness, and most importantly a lack of physical
presence at the workstation. All of which are not privileged “know-how” earned
at elite medical, engineering, or nursing schools! Those are basic skills and work
ethic taught throughout school years regardless of specialties.
Similarly,
for the blackout incident, and despite the substantial government effort to evade
accountability, there is a well-established public conviction that there was significant
human error in failing to forecast and monitor the grid’s frequency
synchronization that caused the power outage.
The public outrage at the civil
service system, which staffs public institutions with ineligible personnel (on a
first-in-the queue first-appointed basis), and which awards a lifetime of
impunity to performance assessments or dismissal, is totally justified; Still, it
is not the root cause of the problem.
There is a consensus that the primary reason behind the deteriorating public
sector is the low quality of education, coupled with an apathetic culture that
has plagued Jordanians at large.
Let
us face it, education in Jordan needs surgical intervention leading to a reinvention
and cannot survive on piecemeal reforms, which do not tackle the root cause of
the problem: educators’ aptitude and the relevance of schools’ curricula.
In a
country that boasts about its super young population of 2,145,000 students, attending
7,000 schools, the ministry of education failed to allocate more than 1 percent
of its JD1,056,337,000 budget to capital expenditure; only allotting JD8
million of that to equipping classrooms with technical instruments. This quick
glance at the budget leaves no doubt that the ministry’s main concern are the salaries
of the teachers and the capacity of classrooms, not the excellence in education!
A
candid discussion about education policies and ministerial budgets cannot be invisible
to the political dimension embodied by the influence of the Muslim Brotherhood
Movement on appointing public school teachers since the 1950s, when the state
welcomed their role to help fend off a tide of communism. The outcome of this long
marriage of convenience resulted in the dominance of the movement over the
teachers’ syndicate, a body of 135,000 men and women who have politicized their
dissent with government policies and held the longest strike in the history of
Jordan. The strike would not end before an unconditional increase in salaries was
granted, casting-off any performance evaluation criteria to establish a merit-based
raise.
It
takes plenty of courage in the face of land-sliding public sympathy, to hold
the majority of these teachers responsible for the diminishing comparative
advantage and declining rankings on all “quality of education” indicators, but
more essentially, the poor cultural upbringing of numerous generations.
In the
absence of political action or an academic-led movement to adopt serious
national discourse that does not only list shortcomings or praise a successful “Scandinavian”
model; it seems that only Her Majesty Queen Rania has presented an overarching blueprint
for reform. Focusing on empowering teachers and improving educational outcomes,
the Queen Rania Foundation’s executive plan proved to be a relevant design
aimed at reinventing education on the national level and localizing best practices.
The Foundation
launched The Teacher’s Academy in 2016 to steer a much-needed independent assessment
and certification program that ended up, informally, shaping the ministry’s
career-path evaluation criteria. Furthermore, the Queen has capitalized on the outcomes
of the National Human Resources Development Commission, which laid the building
blocks of many changes in the national curricula and the way we invest in human
capital.
This
effort has triggered a grudge among the conservative camp led by the prominent Muslim
Brotherhood parliamentarian advocate Saleh Armouti who cynically questioned the
modus operandi, influence, and finances of the Teachers Academy in 2018, mistakenly
naming it “Queen Rania Center for Training and Advancement.” The Queen,
unflinching, wittedly mocked the mistake in an unusual tweet and eloquently
proclaimed her staunch leadership of this critical reform.
Building on that incident, the instigators of the 2019
Teachers’ Strike centered their arguments on the Teachers’ Academy. This time,
the Queen broke her silence about the criticism in an open-hearted letter
published in Al-Rai newspaper, in which she questioned whether her 26-year record
of public service in child protection and improving the living standards for
families was not adequately evident of her good intentions! The Queen concluded
with a reaffirmation of her pride in the academy and factually refuted the rumors
of profit making and property ownership.
There is a tacit identification but not a verbatim confession
that the country’s education system is at a crossroads between two opposing
agendas — that of the progressives and the conservatives. The progressive agenda
promotes global human values, highlights local culture, underlines the tolerant
principles of Islam while focusing on digitization, coding, hands-on
experimenting, entrepreneurship, leadership in class, early-childhood
integration, equal access to education, parental involvement, inclusion, and
diversity.
The opposing agenda, adopted by the conservatives, aims
to maintain the style of indoctrination that emphasizes patriarchy and strives
to affix religious script to every topic in all textbooks. Also, and under the
pretext of countering western influence and conserving the traditional society
values, this agenda discounts enterprising education, belittles music, sports and
cultural programs, disapproves of gender equity initiatives, and typecasts
women in limited professional roles in society.
The current calls for political and public sector
reform are more likely going to entice novice conservative voices and clergy-influenced
politicians to flex their muscles on the education sector, leading to more
damage. It is imperative that the progressives of Jordan come together to form
a political party with the reinvention of education as its core program.
The program should embrace the innovative plans already introduced by The Queen
Rania Foundation to contrive a functional education system, paralleled with
robust governance, clear inclusion measures, and sustainable budgetary guidelines.
“The Academy” is a suitable name for such a political
party that should embark on canvasing and rallying Jordanians behind its
mandate when it announces its candidates for the next parliamentarian
election. Perhaps only then, will
Jordanians shake off their apathy towards elections to determine which path
this country shall take in the next centennial — that of the “Academy” or the “Syndicate”!
Unlike the state of alarm raised by an
oxygen shortage in a hospital or a nationwide
blackout, the decay of education’s quality is
perpetual and there are no loud sirens announcing it. We can only suffer the
results in our factories, universities, businesses, parliament, and other
institutions, while getting confused over accountability for so long.
It is time for “The
Academy.”
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