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(Last updated: 13 Jul 2007)
Trends and opportunities
The market
Jordan is a society that values education. The country is not overly endowed with natural resources and the government is making a concerted effort to increase its human capital.
The population structure is predominately young. The largest age demographic is people under the age of 15. Out of a population of 5.4 million, approximately 1.4 million (nearly one-third of the population) are students.
Education from Grades 1–10 is compulsory (until age 15) and free. This is followed by two-years of secondary education, either academic or comprehensive vocational, which is completed by students sitting the Tawjihi, the General Certificate of Secondary Education Exam.
Apprenticeship students and those receiving intensive vocational training attend Vocational Secondary School and are awarded a Completion Certificate. These courses are the responsibility of the Vocational Training Corporation, an organisation under the control of the Ministry of Labour.
Jordan has 22 public and private universities with approximately 170,000 students, including 20,000 foreign students mainly from other Arab countries.
The Australian education system is highly regarded and well recognised in Jordan. There are now more than 400 Jordanian students in Australia and a significant number of them are scholarship postgraduate students sent by their local universities to complete Master's and Ph.D. degrees.
The government of Jordan is instituting policies aimed at improving the quality of education and ensuring that students have relevant labour market skills needed to effectively compete for domestic, regional and international employment.
In 2003, the government, with the financial support of the World Bank, began its five-year Educational Reform for the Knowledge Economy (ERfKE) project. With a budget of US$380 million, the aims of the project are to: reform education policy, programs and practise; improve facilities and teaching standards; and to establish IT capabilities and facilities.
Opportunities
Major opportunities for Australian education providers exist in undergraduate and postgraduate student recruitment.
Both the Australian Embassy and Austrade office in Jordan receive an increasing number of student enquiries, particularly from Master’s and PhD scholarship candidates. Demand for PhD degrees is growing, particularly in medicine, engineering, tourism, and IT.
For the purposes of issuing student visas, Australia’s Department of Immigration and Multicultural Affairs (DIMA) has placed Jordan in the Assessment Level 4 category; a category indicating a country where there is a high perceived risk that many student visa holders may breach visa conditions. To mitigate the risk students are required to meet more stringent conditions (especially financial) to demonstrate their bona fides. However, DIMA representatives in Amman have rejected few scholarship students applying for postgraduate studies.
In recent years demand has grown for specialised accredited professional training courses, including:
- IT
- English language
- Leadership and soft skills
- Sales and marketing
- Professional accounting (CPA, CAA)
Opportunities are available for Australian educational institutions to reach twinning agreements, exchange programs and research projects to utilise Jordan’s highly regarded academic standards.
Competitive environment
The governments of the USA, Canada, the UK and Japan are (in partnership the World Bank) involved in the major Educational Reform for the Knowledge Economy (ERfKE) project.
The USA has taken serious steps to engage the overall Jordan market and is party to a free trade agreement with Jordan signed in 2000. A US education is highly valued in Jordan.
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