Friday, December 02, 2005
Education City
I'm off tonight to visit Education City in Qatar.
In principal, Education City may be one of the best big ideas in the world. Qatar is a small country on the Persian Gulf. They've invited several prestigious universities (currently Carnegie Mellon, Cornell, Georgetown, Texas A&M and Virginia Commonwealth) to set up satellite campuses there. The idea is to provide a first-class postsecondary education in the Arab world. This can help build a future for Arab countries when the wells run dry, and it does it in a way that builds on the Arab world's historic role as a center of learning in the world. If this works, kids in the Arab world will be able to see their future in a way that builds on the past but allows them to participate in a progressive future.
So, why haven't you heard of it? Why isn't Tom Friedman writing about it? Google for it, and you see just about no coverage in the west, other than press releases by the universities (this MSNBC article is an exception).
I'm not sure. Maybe it's too new. Maybe this vision is controversial in the Arab world and viewed with skepticism in the Western world. Maybe it's too much to believe that this big vision could come out of a country as small as Qatar. Maybe this is too big a vision to be driven by a country as small as Qatar. Maybe its some kind of scam.
I don't know, but I'm going there to find out. At the very least, we'll help some kids learn some math.
In principal, Education City may be one of the best big ideas in the world. Qatar is a small country on the Persian Gulf. They've invited several prestigious universities (currently Carnegie Mellon, Cornell, Georgetown, Texas A&M and Virginia Commonwealth) to set up satellite campuses there. The idea is to provide a first-class postsecondary education in the Arab world. This can help build a future for Arab countries when the wells run dry, and it does it in a way that builds on the Arab world's historic role as a center of learning in the world. If this works, kids in the Arab world will be able to see their future in a way that builds on the past but allows them to participate in a progressive future.
So, why haven't you heard of it? Why isn't Tom Friedman writing about it? Google for it, and you see just about no coverage in the west, other than press releases by the universities (this MSNBC article is an exception).
I'm not sure. Maybe it's too new. Maybe this vision is controversial in the Arab world and viewed with skepticism in the Western world. Maybe it's too much to believe that this big vision could come out of a country as small as Qatar. Maybe this is too big a vision to be driven by a country as small as Qatar. Maybe its some kind of scam.
I don't know, but I'm going there to find out. At the very least, we'll help some kids learn some math.
// posted by Steve Ritter @ 1:21 PM 
