Yemeni Higher Education Vision

The rapid developments in information and communication technologies (ICT) have brought new innovative technology discoveries such as personal computers, Internet, cellular telephony and satellites communication, but have also induced social and political changes that effect our present and further situation. In this new, so called, ”Information Age” we see the gap broadening between the level of ICT knowledge that is being used in developed countries and the level in developing countries. Consequently serious threats arise that force us to consider the necessary actions to be taken in order to rectify the current situation: decreasing this growing “digital divide” is the motivation for immediate actions and initiatives.

The government of Yemen is increasingly giving attention to the role of ICT in the Yemeni education sector and intends to enhance Yemeni competitiveness in the region. Re-orientation of the present educational system towards ICT is regarded essential and the new, government supported, project from the World Bank “For a Higher Education Learning and Innovation project 2003-2006” is an obvious example of this.

At the same time the Yemeni government, through the newly formed Ministry of Higher Education and Scientific Research (MoHESR), desires to improve the quality of education in order to produce better qualified graduates of the institutes for Higher Education (HE).

In order to achieve this long term goal the capacity of the Yemeni public institutes for HE needs to be strengthened to give these institutes the opportunity of achieving a better performance of their teaching mission. In such a context the effective use of ICT in the educational setting is a necessary precondition. A review of the ICT status in Yemeni HE demonstrated that the current situation was haphazard, threatening waste with parallel efforts leading to less than optimal results, or even failure. This was reason for the MoHESR to first strengthen the capacity of higher education institutes (HEIs) to plan for ICT growth before rushing into specific ICT projects. The results of this initiative are the national ICT policy presented in this document and the subsequent national master plan for ICT HE in Yemen and institutional-specific master plans for the phased implementation of ICT in the sector.