Arab Educational Information Network

The paper addresses the problematic issue of identifying the actual extent of the future need for building an Arab higher education region; that is, a space comprising a network of universities aimed at facilitating regional mobility of students and researchers. The problematic is placed within the context of diminishing student and researcher mobility in the Arab region, at a time when international university clusters and spaces are emerging. After reviewing the experience with Arab university and academic networking (the Association of Arab Universities and the Federation of Scientific Research Councils, etc.), as well as international experiences (the European Barcelona Process), the paper proposes diagnostic indicators of scientific and student mobility in the Arab countries; and identifies shortcomings, through the partial results of a survey of regional student mobility in the Arab region (2009). Hence, the paper recognizes the obstacles to the establishment of the required space and the appropriate measures for overcoming them, such as ensuring the independence of universities and recognizing them as independent actors, and the need for initiating possible and applicable experimental trends.