Manama : The Board of Trustees of the Higher Education Council, chaired by Dr. Mohammed bin Mubarak Juma, the Minister of Education and Chairman of the Council, held its periodic meeting.
The meeting reviewed the results of field visits by inspection teams from the Higher Education Council’s General Secretariat. These visits aimed to assess the readiness of private higher education institutions for admissions to council-approved programmes and to monitor final exams in bachelor’s and master’s programmes during the past academic year.
The General Secretariat’s report on the follow up of initiatives from the Higher Education Council’s operational plan was also reviewed.
The council issued a decision regarding on-job training regulations in Bahrain’s higher education institutions. This decision establishes guidelines for integrating students into training programmes as part of their academic plans. The council was also briefed on the initiative to develop a governance framework for research and development to enhance Bahrain’s competitiveness.
The council considered requests from various higher education institutions and made the following decisions:
– Approval of the American University’s request to introduce a Bachelor of Science in Information Science and Artificial Intelligence and a Bachelor of Science in Software Engineering.
– Approval of Kingdom University’s request to suspend the Master’s programme in Sustainable Architecture, hosted by the University of Florence, Italy.
– Approval of Kingdom University’s request to sign a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with King Faisal University, Saudi Arabia.
– Approval of Gulf University’s request to sign an MoU with the National Power Academy, Saudi Arabia.
– Approval of the University of Technology Bahrain’s request to sign an MoU with the University of Dubai, UAE.
– Approval of the University of Technology Bahrain’s request to sign an MoU with Amity University, India.
– Approval of Bahrain Medical University’s request to sign a cooperation agreement with National Taipei University of Nursing and Health Sciences, Taiwan.
– Approval of Bahrain Medical University’s request to reconstitute its Board of Trustees.
– Approval of Strathclyde University – Bahrain’s request to form a temporary Board of Trustees chaired by Khalid Al Hammadi and to appoint Professor Stephen McArthur as university president.
– Approval of the Arab Open University’s request to appoint Dr. Najma Ghuloom Redha Taqi as university president.
Additionally, the Minister of Education informed the council about ongoing measures to deal with forged qualifications and unaccredited or hoax educational institutions. He outlined the steps being taken in coordination with the Public Prosecution in this regard.
