Higher Education and Sociopolitical Transformation in Jordan

Abstract

Jordan's policy of higher education since the 1970s has entailed a major socio-economic transformation with vital political ramifications. A nonofficial and un-transparent affirmative action policy in the universities including admission quotas, scholarships, tuition fees and nominations of faculty members, in addition to decentralization of academic institutions, overbalanced the rate of the tribal Transjordanian community of the rural periphery at the expense of the Palestinians, who mostly reside in the urban centre. The proportion of Jordanians of Palestinian extraction among students and faculty members had been decreasing since the early 1970s, from about 95% to less then 50%, whereas they consist of over half of the population. Higher education became another area of Transjordanian dominance in addition to the civil service, the army and the polity. The rapid process of academization among the tribal populations resulted in their social and economic mobilization, both in the public sector and in lucrative positions in the Gulf States.