Arab American University for Distance Learning

The Arab American University for Distance Learning was a distance learning provider which the Hashemite University of Jordan planned to set up to begin operating by November 2002. It was also planned that the university would have satellite branches in other Arab countries, such as Yemen and Kuwait.

Initially the university was to be based on the Hashemite University campus, in Zarqa, but plans call for it to move to a permanent site in Amman, the capital of Jordan.

It was planned that $20 million would be invested in the university during the first four years of operation, with half of the money coming from a private Kuwaiti firm and the other half from Hashemite University.

The reassessment of distance-learning bylaws is said to be related to efforts to halt popular correspondence courses operated within Jordan by other Arab countries, notably Sudan. According to the higher-education council's secretary general, Omar Shdeifat, the standards of those correspondence course are egregiously low, and new Jordanian distance-learning alternatives can offer solutions.

For further details see the article "Jordanian University Plans to Create a Distance-Learning Institution" in the Chronicle of Higher Education, Monday, August 27, 2001 - http://chronicle.com/free/2001/08/2001082701u.htm.

Current situation

We have to do some further checking but nothing has been heard of this enterprise recently. In particular the Arab Open University (headquartered in Kuwait) operates in Jordan with the full approval of the Jordanian government and with funding from Kuwaiti princes and the UN Arab Gulf Cooperation Fund (AGFUND).

See http://www.hu.edu.jo/ for some information on current activities at the Hashemite University.

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