Voices from the Arab press: Education across the Middle East

I believe the Higher Education Ministry has not made a serious, sustained effort to understand the true nature of the media job market – its realities, conditions, and actual needs. Instead of ensuring the necessary coordination between the labor market and media programs, we find that employers in the field do not necessarily require their employees to be graduates of these programs; they often prefer to hire talented individuals more broadly, including graduates of other disciplines whose specializations better match what these businesses require.

Conversely, there is also a strikingly haphazard approach to establishing media colleges and departments, undertaken without rigorous scientific studies that identify genuine labor market needs, or any objective assessment of whether expanding these programs is truly feasible in terms of the practical skills and professional experience they offer – both of which are essential for preparing graduates to enter media work effectively.

This, in turn, highlights the importance of examining international media experiences and drawing lessons from their models to cultivate specialized media professionals. Under such models, each professional would pursue a defined field of knowledge – such as science, medicine, law, or literature – while supplementing their academic preparation with courses from media colleges aligned with their specialization. This approach helps produce highly capable media professionals who can compete in an increasingly fierce media environment, especially in an era when satellite broadcasting has erased borders between nations.

Egyptian media needs precisely these competencies to restore its position and leadership locally, regionally, and internationally, given that it remains one of the pillars of the state and a vital instrument of soft power, particularly in the face of biased media driven by countries and groups whose agendas run counter to society’s values.

As media has become an influential component of national security, it is imperative that media graduates possess the skills and competence required to succeed on a global stage – especially in a world of tangled interests, the expanding role of information, and the growing campaigns of misinformation and rumor, which can only be countered by media that is advanced, professionally qualified, and capable of performing its national role alongside its educational and entertainment responsibilities.

The public school experience in any society is a cornerstone of citizenship formation and a testament to the state’s very existence. Its importance exceeds even that of the military, for it is the formative environment in which individuals grow beyond blood ties, learning to belong to a community broader than family, clan, or sect. Within the school, collective consciousness is shaped, language and values are transmitted, early behaviors are formed, and a sense of national identity is cultivated.

History reminds us that when the Mongols occupied Baghdad, they destroyed schools, most notably the Mustansiriya, as did subsequent invaders, culminating in the American invasion, which targeted the very concept of public education by turning schools into military barracks and service facilities – an outright violation of the sanctity of the school and a moral assassination of public education in Iraq.

For decades, the public school system was among the last remaining unifying spaces for Iraqis. It was where the sons of farmers, civil servants, officers, city dwellers, and rural residents met within a single structure that offered everyone a comparable chance for social mobility, despite the authoritarian nature of the state. In the same classroom, the son of a director-general sat beside the son of a janitor, a driver, a doctor, and an engineer, forging a shared language, a basic national memory, and a relative sense of moral equality.

In this way, the school helped soften class divisions and prevented society from fully collapsing into closed sectors or enclaves, as we witnessed in 2006 when neighborhoods were separated by concrete barriers in a scene reminiscent of apartheid. However, this system was not abolished by a single decree, nor was it looted by the blunt force of arms; rather, it was dismantled in a more insidious and criminal fashion.

After 2003, public schools were left standing without renovation, without decent furniture, without health services, and without the construction of new schools to accommodate population growth. The school system was quietly and gradually pulled from the public sphere, piece by piece, until Iraqis found themselves confronting an institution that existed in form but was hollow in substance.

This destruction of the school system was not the result of financial constraints, as is often claimed; it was a deliberate political and economic process that transformed the school from a public right and a sovereign responsibility into a commodity for the market and investment, becoming a source of profit for influential parties, power networks, and armed groups.

The stripping of the public school system of its meaning was preceded by the introduction of the alternative: private schools. School buildings were abandoned without maintenance, and the most basic requirements of school life disappeared. There was no clean water, no sanitary facilities, no decent desks, and no serious teacher training.

Overcrowding shifted from an exceptional problem into a permanent norm. Classrooms held dozens, even hundreds, of students, and schools ran on two, three, or even four shifts, until attending school became an exhausting ordeal rather than an educational experience. Thus, the collapse was slowly engineered, later made to appear natural, and used to present private education as the only possible option.

This collapse cannot be justified by a scarcity of resources. A state that finances massive concrete projects, builds bridges, malls, and residential complexes, and stages cultural and propaganda festivals is certainly capable of building modern schools. The neglect here is a political choice made by an authority that fears free education because it generates awareness and threatens the structure of hegemony, undermining the neo-liberal order entrenched by the post-2003 regime in Iraq.

With the collapse of the public school system, private education is marketed as a practical solution, not because it is better, but because it is framed as the lesser of two evils. This is where the real exploitation takes place, when society is forced to choose between bad and worse.

Private education in Iraq was not established as a supplement to the public education system, but as a predatory investment project aligned with the neo-liberal policies of the ruling order. Many of these schools are directly or indirectly owned by political parties and figures connected to the state, particularly factions within the ruling establishment.

These actors run schools with a profit imperative, placing revenue above education and knowledge. They raise tuition fees, erode standards, and turn parents’ anxieties about their children’s futures into a steady stream of income. In this closed market – one that is deeply unjust to Iraq’s poor and middle class – education is transformed from a right into a commodified, hollowed-out product, and from a social guarantee into a class privilege, as if we were living in an age of nobility and feudalism.

Every private school that opens without a corresponding investment in public schooling is another step in the erosion of the public right to education. In some areas, the neglect has moved beyond indifference; schools themselves have been seized, political loyalties and symbols imposed, and the school turned into a politicized and surveilled space. When society is forced to treat education as a paid service, the relationship between the individual and the state is fundamentally altered. The citizen becomes vulnerable and diminished, their standing contingent on their ability to pay.

Since Hezbollah continues to adhere to its decision to halt military confrontations, it must now exert further exceptional efforts to pursue controlled and limited confrontations under the pretext of preventing the local population, especially residents of the frontline towns, from falling into despair and remaining in a state of instability and uncertainty about the future, and of strengthening their daily attachment to those towns and preventing them from abandoning or distancing themselves from them by supporting residents there and facilitating the return of those who wish to stay for a limited period and revive religious rituals.

Accordingly, Hezbollah believes that through this effort, it is waging a round-the-clock battle of wills with the Israelis, who seek to bring an end to all aspects of life and normal living in those towns – especially Naqoura, Dhayra, Yaroun, Maroun El Ras, Aitaroun, Meiss El Jabal, Aadaysit Marjaayoun, Kfarkela, Blida, and Houla, extending all the way to Khiam in the eastern sector – towns whose combined population exceeds 120,000 people.

In recent weeks, Israel has launched what amounts to a war against bulldozers, excavators, concrete mixers, and construction or partial renovation sites, deliberately targeting and destroying them with airstrikes – or, at best, issuing warnings to evacuate and leave the area – while field reports indicate that Israel has succeeded in damaging more than 80 bulldozers, excavators, concrete mixers, and construction sites, turning the situation into a major gamble and effectively paralyzing operations.

Recently, Israel has added another escalatory pattern by sending army units to infiltrate border towns, destroy homes, and then withdraw, or by ordering drones to drop bombs on other homes. This type of operation has become a daily occurrence through which military leadership aims to make those concerned – especially residents of those towns – understand that they are in constant danger, have no secure way to settle into their homes and livelihoods in frontline villages, and that the Israeli eye is tracking their movements with extreme precision, so they should expect the most dangerous and worst.

While it is clear that Israel continues its war on people in the south, it has recently added to its record sophisticated patterns in the assassinations of Hezbollah cadres – operations it began long ago and has never stopped. It has intensified these strikes daily, to the point that it has assassinated more than five cadres on several occasions in a single day.

What is striking in this context is the apparent practice of revealing the identity of the targeted individual in less than half an hour, while distributing summaries of their current and past missions. Military experts view this as a sophisticated tactic that showcases Israeli intelligence capabilities, and the depth of its security penetration of the enemy, intended to intimidate.

Moreover, these operations often extend beyond the southern region, reaching as far as Hermel, the Bekaa Valley, and the Iqlim al-Kharroub area in the Shouf Mountains, further emphasizing that the reach of Israeli security is long and that it can strike where others least expect it.

According to the latest statistics and estimates, the number of people assassinated by Israel over the last 13 months has reached roughly 420. If the information is accurate that retired Lebanese General Security officer Ahmad Shukr – reportedly lured and kidnapped by Israeli intelligence from the Bekaa Valley due to a connection he had with the disappearance of Israeli pilot Ron Arad in Lebanon more than 30 years ago – has indeed been abducted, then this indicates that Tel Aviv has finally settled on a new approach to security breaches based on surprising the adversary in his own backyard.

It is worth noting that Israel has previously used this method when it kidnapped Ali Al-Dirani from his town in the Bekaa Valley, Sheikh Abdel Karim Obeid from his town in the South, and, most recently, naval captain Imad Amhaz from Batroun. A short time ago, MP Hassan Fadlallah came out to confirm that Hezbollah had received information indicating that Israel was planning to escalate the fighting against it and against Iran.