Higher education committees to set 2018-2019 universities’ admissions policy

AMMAN — The Higher Education Council on Tuesday assigned its legal and academic committees to set the admissions policy for the academic year of 2018-2019 in order to achieve the objectives of the National Human Resources Development Strategy, Higher Education Minister Adel Tweisi told the Jordan Times in a recent interview. 

The minister explained that “the National Strategy for Human Resources Development requires the council to provide official universities with greater autonomy,” adding that “this instruction is also included in the draft Higher Education Law, which stipulates that the regulations on admissions shall be the authority of the universities’ boards of trustees”.

“The joint committee will now prepare a general policy on admissions for the upcoming academic year, which will be forwarded to all official universities for them to adhere to it when determining their own admission policies,” Tweisi continued. 

He highlighted that the general admission policy will include a requirement for all universities to abide by the maximum capacity stipulated by the Higher Education Accreditation Commision (HEAC), stressing that the council will not allow universities to exceed the minimum number of students per specialty in accordance with the number of faculty members.

The new policy will also take into account the current absorptive capacity of the labour market per each specialty, Tweisi explained, citing the decision ratified by the Higher Education Council 8 months ago to reduce the percentage of students in specialties with no labour demand.

“Up to this point, we have been able to reduce the number of students in the targeted specialties by 30 per cent,” the minister added, explaining that “the objective is now to increase the number of students enrolled in technical specialties, as the labour demand is witnessing a continued increase in this field.”