Higher Education Ministry to add new majors in universities

AMMAN — The Ministry of Higher Education and Scientific Research on Tuesday announced that the Higher Education Board has decided to introduce a number of new majors for both bachelor’s and master’s degrees in public and private universities in addition to new academic programmes that will meet local, regional and international market demands.

The decision was made during a recent meeting of the Higher Education Board in the presence of Minister of Higher Education and Scientific Research Mohammad Abu Qudais.

The new programmes are expected to be introduced at the beginning of the new academic year 2021-2022, given they meet the requirements of the Jordan National Qualifications Framework (JNQF).

According to the   ministry, the new majors are distributed in three categories: Medical, technological and business.

The medical majors are   Applied Pharmaceutical Industry, Intensive Care, Radiation Technology, Medical Therapeutic Nutrition and Respiratory Treatment.

The technological majors are: Data Science, Artificial Intelligence, Robot-ex, Cyber Security, Video Games Programming and Development, Cyber Law, Web and Mobile Applications Development, Digital Marketing and Promotion

The Business Specialties are: E-marketing, Financial Technology and Artificial Intelligence in Business.

Meanwhile, the board disapproved some majors having been either taught in other universities or listed as saturated for the Jordanian labour market.

Regarding PhD programme applications, a special committee from the Higher Education Ministry’s board is conducting a study to find out whether they can be introduced to universities according to certain requirements that will guarantee the quality of the programmes’ outputs.

The ministry’s board postponed its decision regarding requests to open more dentistry faculties in different universities until the conclusion of a study to find out if there is a need for more graduates or not.