The System of Higher Education
Occupying a peninsula surrounded by the Arabian or Persian Gulf, the State of Qatar was a British protectorate that gained independence in 1971. Two years later, the first higher education institution – to train teachers for the expanding school system – was founded. An absolute monarchy, Qatar has been ruled by the Al-Thani family since the mid-1800s (Kamrava 2013). Likewise, its educational institutions are supervised directly by the ruling family via the Supreme Education Council (SEC), formed 2002, that makes decisions affecting all aspects of education. Not least due to its reputation for huge investments in the arts, education, and science, Qatar has become an influential member of the Gulf Cooperation Council and the League of Arab States. Yet it also employs nearly two million migrant workers to achieve its ambitious developmental goals, all funded by its vast natural gas reserves.
The tertiary education sector in Qatar has grown very rapidly,...
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Crist, J.T., Powell, J.J.W. (2017). Higher Education Systems and Institutions, Qatar. In: Shin, J., Teixeira, P. (eds) Encyclopedia of International Higher Education Systems and Institutions. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-017-9553-1_484-1
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-017-9553-1_484-1
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