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Al-Ahram Weekly 4 - 10 May 2000 Issue No. 480 
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Published in Cairo by AL-AHRAM established in 1875 |
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Al-Ahram Weekly 4 - 10 May 2000 Issue No. 480
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| Published in Cairo by AL-AHRAM established in 1875 |
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Egypt Region International Economy Opinion Culture Special Features Travel Living Sports Profile People Time Out Chronicles Cartoons Letters The learning returns
By Salama Ahmed Salama
The participants at a meeting in Sharqa supported by UNESCO and the Union of Arab Universities -- eminent Arab scientists drawn from the most prestigious universities and research centres in Europe and the United States -- have discovered that the Arabs are subordinated to and dependent on the West in the field of science. The crisis in scientific research in Arab countries gives little hope for the future state of the field.
Participants ascribed backwardness in scientific research to the scarcity of budgetary resources allocated to scientific enterprises. State allocations to research are a trifling 0.25 per cent of GDP, as against three to 3.5 per cent in other countries. It was revealed at the meeting that even these meagre amounts are not spent entirely on scientific research. Universities devote no more than one per cent of their budgets to scientific pursuits; the remainder is spent on salaries, wages and other expenses.
The same countries that boast about their stocks of weapons and sophisticated defence systems, which far exceed the purchases of the most industrialised and developed countries, spend even less on scientific research than the poorest countries. Yet all their arsenals of expensive state-of-the-art weapons do not allow them to take an independent political stand or exercise their political free will. In addition, such countries suffer from critically low levels of education and a high level of illiteracy.
The bitter truth is that certain oil-rich Arab countries, which have wallowed in money for decades, have also failed to eradicate illiteracy. Little wonder, therefore, that they place scientific research at the bottom of their list of priorities. Instead, they import high-tech equipment and laboratories from the West to satisfy all their needs, from equipment for hospitals, banks or government offices to recreational facilities. At the same time, however, they have neglected to train national cadres capable of operating, maintaining and repairing these imports, so that skilled technicians have also had to be imported from Pakistan, India, or Malaysia to undertake such tasks. As for the mega-projects, those have always been operated fully by experts and technical cadres working for international and multinational organisations. The nationals of the oil-rich countries have neither the training, the science nor the experience that could afford them access to such technology and allow them to integrate scientific research with social needs.
The problem, therefore, cannot be addressed only by increasing investments in scientific research at universities or research centres. Research institutions are already housed in majestic buildings in many Arab capitals. It can be addressed, however, by developing an integrated system in which public education, from the elementary level up, is tied to university education, then to scientific and technological research centres with relevance to society's needs. Such a system could lead to the establishment of a solid scientific and industrial base.
The statistics related to the state of science and technology in the developing countries, disclosed at the World Conference on Education held recently in Dakar, which reviews the balance sheet of education every ten years, gave the bleakest picture of all, however. According to these figures, one sixth of the world's population -- one billion individuals -- are illiterate, and 125 million children, many of them in the Arab world, have never set foot in a school. Another figure is of some relevance here: four days' worth of global spending on arms, approximately $8 billion, are sufficient to finance a programme to eradicate illiteracy worldwide.
