Dubai’s ruler has recently made an announcement of donating $10bn for a newly formed education body. The idea behind this charity is to raise the standards of education and create more jobs for the Arab people. The foundation, called after the ruler’s name, the Mohammed bin Rashid al-Maktoum Foundation, is expected to work on human development in the Middle East. As per Sheikh’s own words, Arabs needed to develop a “knowledge-based society” to meet with the challenges of a new millennium. There is a growing fear across the Arab world that a lacking education and scientific research might adversely affect their economic growth.
Despite having attained a fair deal of economic growth in the last few decades, the Arab world is still adamant in accepting the outside world’s influences, which includes modern education and scientific knowhow. They may cooperate with the outside world for economic reasons, but wouldn’t allow that association to grow any further. The prevalence of orthodox Islam makes it only difficult for them to have any significant exchanges with the outside world. As a result many look at modern education with a shade...