Page 78 - Education World November 2022

International News

Survey, taken by a pollster in Dubai, found that UAE Arabs
already use it more than Arabic. Saudi Arabia has become
the most recent Gulf state to teach schoolchildren English
from kindergarten. A large minority of Gulf citizens’ chil-
dren go to private schools where English is the main lan-
guage of tuition. Ms Kebti says “no one can stop” the spread
of English. A World Bank study reported last year that by
the time they are in their fourth year at school, many Arab
children struggle to write a coherent sentence in Arabic.
The fragmentation of Arabic is a feature of Arab disunity.
An array of dialects with their different vocabularies, syntax
and accents has infiltrated bastions of standard Arabic such
as parliaments, television shows and publishing houses. To
bolster circulation, publishers are printing more books in
dialect. In 2019, Nadia Kamel won a top literary prize in USP Fiji campus: Inset: vice chancellor Pal Ahluwalia
Egypt for a novel in dialect. Television news channels still
broadcast in standard Arabic, so many Arabs prefer to get grants to USP won’t be paid until the government’s allega-
their news from social media, often in dialects written in tions against Prof. Ahluwalia, which now include bullying
Latin characters. Disney now dubs its films in Egyptian and nepotism, are independently investigated. USP’s two
dialect. Expressions of love are said to sound stilted in the staff unions counter that the allegations against Ahluwalia,
official lingo. who is now based in Samoa, have already been dismissed
Champions of Arabic are trying to fight back. Arabic will, in five independent inquiries. They say that having failed to
K
of course, remain the language of the holy oran. “We think remove Prof. Ahluwalia for exposing financial mismanage-
Arabic is more living than Latin because of its presence in ment and misconduct by his predecessors, the government
the media, sermons and speeches,” says Hossam Abouzahr, was taking it out on the “premier regional university” and
founder of The Living Arabic Project, an online platform its students.
that strives to revive the language. “Latin survived in the Economic difficulties in USP’s three biggest member
churches for centuries despite having no native speakers,” countries — Fiji, the Solomon Islands and Vanuatu — have
he notes hopefully. also curbed the supply of loans and allowances. In 2020,
Fiji slashed funding for its tertiary education loan scheme
SOUTH PACIFIC (TELS) by more than one-third. As a result, the school
Showpiece varsity’s dire straits mark threshold for loans eligibility was increased while the
value of associated scholarships was reduced. Meanwhile,
A Solomons and Vanuatu students routinely face protracted
BITTER LEADERSHIP ROW AT THE WORLD’S
delays in receiving government living allowances, leaving
most pan-national university has cost it almost half
year’s revenue, in an escalation of the economically
and politically fuelled funding insecurity that bedevils the them vulnerable to “loan sharks” and unscrupulous land-
lords in Fiji, according to the Pacific A dvocate.
institution. Staff at the University of the South Pacific (USP) All this threatens what has become an increasingly im-
say that the institution’s biggest contributor, the Fijian portant income stream for USP, with student fees contrib-
government, has withheld F$78 million (Rs.275 crore) of uting 39 percent of institutional revenue by 2018, up from
promised funding since its dispute with vice chancellor Pal 19 percent a decade earlier.
Ahluwalia erupted in 2020. Former USP law lecturer Tess Newton Cain said the uni-
Fiji is the biggest of the 12 island nations that jointly versity’s current financial crisis is a dramatic example of the
own the university, contributing more than 75 percent of its challenges it faces routinely, as one or other of its member
staff and providing 55 percent of students. Its government states fails to hand over its “stake”. “Solomon Islands had
now refuses to pay its share of operating expenses, normally years of struggling to pay its way at USP because they just
about one-sixth of institutional revenue, until Prof. Ahlu- don’t have the wherewithal to keep up the payments,” says
walia is replaced. Dr. Newton Cain, who now heads the Pacific Hub at Griffith
The government’s opponents are outraged. National University’s Asia Institute. “If a country can’t afford to pay,
Federation Party leader and former USP academic Biman then they can’t afford to pay.”
Prasad has promised to reinstate Fiji as “a sound and reli- But now the biggest member country is the defaulter, to
able” USP member that “honours its promises” if he and the gall of other states that have long envied the economic
running mate Sitiveni Rabuka, who heads the People’s Al- benefits Fiji enjoys as host of the university’s headquar-
liance party, win the general election due later this year. ters and easily its biggest campus. “The economic spillover
Premila Kumar, incumbent education minister, says effects are much more pronounced in Fiji than anywhere

78 EDUCATIONWORLD NOVEMBER 2022